Delhi High Court to grant stay on misuse of Salman Khan name, photos for sale of commercial merchandise

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked social media and intermediaries to act on the complaint by Bollywood Actor Salman Khan alleging violation of his personality rights [Salman Khan v Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors].

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora also said that she herself will pass stay orders against those defendants who have been misusing Khan's name, photos and other personality attributes for sale of commercial merchandise.

"Defendants 2,4,6 to treat the plaint complaint under IT Intermediaries Rules and notice was issued to them. Action is to be taken in 3 days. Defendant 2 who is allegedly violating the trademark is directed to take into consideration the IP rights before taking its decision. I will pass stay orders on defendants on commercial merchandise," the Court said.

Khan approached the High Court seeking directions against several entities, including unknown (John Doe) defendants to restrain them from unauthorisedly using his personality rights.

His counsel, Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, told the Court today that Apple, AI chatbot, few e-marketplaces and RedBubble have allowed infringement of Khan's personality rights.

He also objected to certain fan accounts using his photoshopped pictures.

"What is your issue with fan accounts?" the Court asked.

"It is my registered trademark. They use photoshopped photos, these are not my real photos," Sethi said.

The Court said that the photos have not been used inappropriately or in an obscene manner.

"It was done without his consent, it is photoshopped," Sethi replied.

The Court then asked an intermediary about its policy when a person flags violation of personality rights through merchandise being sold online.

"If the party directly writes to you to say that his personality rights are being violated because there is merchandise on your website which is not authorized, what's your policy?" it asked.

"These links are already inactive. We act on orders. It is case to case, there is no policy in place, but we do it," the counsel for the intermediary replied.

The veteran actor joined the long list of celebrities who have in the recent days, approached courts to stop the misuse of their personality attributes for commercial gains.

Earlier, Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Nagarjuna, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Karan Johar, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Jaggi Vasudev and many others' personality rights were protected by the Delhi High Court

Along with Sethi, advocates Nizam Pasha and Shreya Sethia also appeared for Salman Khan. They were briefed by Parag Khandhar, Chandrima Mitra, Tapan Radkar, Zara Dhanbhoora, Krishan Kumar and Siddharth Kaushik of DSK Legal.