Delhi High Court to pass order for protection of personality rights of Malayalam actor Mohanlal

The Delhi Court today said that it will issue an order directing the takedown of material infringing the personality rights and copyright of Malayalam actor Mohanlal Viswanathan Nair, popularly known as Mohanlal.

Justice Jyoti Singh was hearing a suit filed by Mohanlal for protection of his personality rights.

The parties to the suit have been asked to submit a note by 4:30 pm today, after which an order will be passed.

The Court directed the intermediaries, including social media sites, to provide Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) of those who have uploaded infringing content within 2 weeks. It also allowed Mohanlal to add more defendants to the suit.

During the hearing, Justice Singh questioned an e-commerce platform for allowing the upload of material that used the actor's image and name without consent and which appeared to violate his personality rights.

"Blatantly using someone's image, why? Tell me if you have taken down, I will record it," the judge said.

The Court was told that the unauthorized merchandise has been taken down. The judge then went through other infringing URLs and asked each party to give a note on the links being pressed and refuted.

The next date of hearing in the matter is July 4.

Advocates MF Philip, Sreehari Indukaladharan, Smitha Damodaran Nair and Togin Babichen appeared for Mohanlal.

Mohanlal joins a long list of actors, cricketers and other notable personalities who have approached the High Court in recent years over their personality and public rights.

Earlier, actors such as Anil Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan have secured injunctions against unauthorised use of their name, voice, image and likeness, particularly in advertisements, merchandise and AI-generated content.

Most recently, the Court had passed orders protecting the personality rights of Sonakshi Sinha.

[Live Coverage]