Delhi High Court restrains sale of merchandise infringing NTR Junior's personality rights

The Delhi High Court recently restrained various merchandise sellers and e-commerce marketplaces from selling unauthorized merchandise using the name of actor Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Junior, popularly known as NTR Junior [Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao v Ashok Kumar/John Doe and Ors]. .Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora observed that NTR Junior is a well-known face in India and has acquired a celebrity status in India. This celebrity status inherently grants him proprietary rights over his personality and associated attributes, the Court added.“Prima facie, the Plaintiff’s personality traits and/or parts thereof, including the Plaintiff’s name, likeness, and image are protectable elements of the Plaintiff’s personality rights. The Plaintiff is entitled to seek injunction against the use of his personality rights by third parties for selling merchandise for their commercial gains, without his authorisation,” it ruled..The Court, thus, directed takedown of the infringing links and also ordered e-commerce platforms to stop facilitating sale of such merchandise."The said Defendants are also directed to delist the impugned goods solicited on their websites, which are infringing personality rights of the Plaintiff," the Court ordered..The Court also took a serious view of the stand taken by e-commerce websites Amazon, Meesho, Flipkart and Shopsy that they cannot act on complaints without a court order. The Court said these e-commerce websites cannot take a “hands-off” approach in such matters.“These entities regularly take a stand that they are not liable for the infringing acts of the resellers and claim safe harbour; however, if the plaintiff/ complainant has specifically filed a complaint to the e-commerce platform stating that the goods being sold are violating its rights, in the considered opinion of this Court these entities cannot have a hands-off approach,” the Court said.It directed the e-commerce platforms to place on record their governing policies for addressing complaints relating to infringement of registered trademarks and copyright, unauthorized use of a person’s image and likeness and sale of merchandise..The matter will be heard next on May 19..Senior Advocate J Sai Deepak with advocates Alka Dahar, Shiv Verma, Khushi Jain, Varun Sharma and Pankhudi Tripathi of Law Offices of India, Advocates and Advisor represented NTR Junior. Advocate Manas Raghuvanshi appeared for Amazon.Advocate Mishthi Dubey appeared for Meesho.Advocates Aditya Gupta, Vani Kaushik and Rohith appeared for Google.Advocates Varun Pathak, Amee Rana, Sana Banyal and Anannya Gogoi appeared for Meta.Advocates Ankit Parhar, Abhishek Kumar, Shreya Gupta and Sanchli Sethi appeared for X Corp.Advocates Ankit Parhar and Shreya Gupta appeared for Reddit. Central Government Standing Counsel Siddhartha Shankar Ray with advocate Atishay Jain appeared for the Union of India. [Read order].[Read Live Coverage].Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.