The Delhi High Court on Monday passed orders protecting the personality rights of actor and politician Jaya Bachchan. .Justice Manmeet Pritam Arora issued injunction orders against websites, social media accounts and e-commerce platforms which were infringing on Bachchan's personality rights and selling unauthorised merchandise. .Bachchan approached the High Court seeking relief against a host of social media accounts, websites and entities misusing her name and persona to sell products or create content online.Along with infringing websites and persons, Bachchan has made Google, YouTube, Meta, as well as Amazon and eBay as defendants to the suit.Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi appeared for Bachchan and pointed to social media handles, YouTube channels and websites that were misusing her personality. He said that individuals were selling merchandise featuring her pictures and that unauthorised AI-generated videos were being generated misusing her likeness..After considering the case, Justice Arora said she would pass injunction orders against the infringing entities. However, the Court said that it will not pass orders against a company selling posters of Jaya Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan's 1973 film Abhimaan on Amazon. The Court said that the copyright in the film lies with the producer of the movie and may not affect Jaya Bachchan's rights. "Right now, I am not inclined to do this. I will direct them [Amazon] to place on record the BSI [Basic Subscriber Information] details. This is not even hurting you. You don’t have any copyright in this," the Court remarked. Sethi contended that copyright will not trump personality rights and that the poster being sold was not the original poster of the film. However, the Court reiterated that it was not convinced at the moment. "It is not as brazen as other material," the Court added. .Jaya Bachchan is the fourth member of the Bachchan family to approach the Delhi High Court to stop the unauthorised use of her personality. Earlier, Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan were granted injunctions against the misuse of their names, persona and other aspects of their personality. .Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi along with advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik, Dhruv Anand and Madhu Gadodia, Udita Patro, Nimrat Singh, Dhananjay Khanna, Bhavya Verma and Unnati Gambani from Anand and Naik appeared for Jaya Bachchan. .Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.
