Delhi High Court Restrains Entities From Infringing Personality Rights Of Bollywood Actor Jackie Shroff

The Delhi High Court has recently restrained various entities from infringing the personality and publicity rights of Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff.

Justice Sanjeev Narula passed an interim injunction order in favour of the actor in his suit seeking protection of his personality rights.

The court restrained two entities from infringing personality or publicity rights of Shroff by utilizing or misappropriating his name and other sobriquets including “JACKIE”, “JAGGU DADA”, his voice and image for any commercial purpose without his consent.

The court held two similar entities bound by their counsel 's statement that the infringing content has been taken down from their website.

The court restrained two entities from infringing the actor's personality or publicity rights by distorting his videos which tarnishes his reputation and violates his moral rights for any commercial purpose, without his consent.

Furthermore, the court restrained an entity from infringing Shroff's personality or publicity rights by commercially using an unlicensed Al chatbot that uses attributes of his persona without his consent, including on formats and mediums like Artificial Intelligence.

It also restrained another entity from using actor's personality rights by exploiting his name and other sobriquets including “JACKIE” “JAGGU DADA' and his image for making available for download a wallpaper for any commercial purpose.

“Defendant No. 16/ Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Defendant No. 17/the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) are directed to issue necessary directions to the telecom service providers and internet service providers to the block the infringing URLs/ links…,” the court said.

However, Justice Narula refused to pass any interim injunction order against an individual running a YouTube channel publishing allegedly derogatory compilations of Shrofft interviews.

“… this Court considers it is essential to balance the legitimate interests of Defendant No. 5 in artistic and economic expression against the Plaintiff's rights to personality, publicity, and moral integrity. Thus, the court would like to have the response from the Defendant No. 5 before expressing its view on this issue,” the court said.

Counsel for Plaintiff: Mr. Pravin Anand, Mr. Ameet Naik, Mr. Dhruv Anand, Ms. Madhu Gadodia, Ms. Udita Patro, Ms. Rinku Gajria, Ms. Sampurnaa Sanyal, Mr. Sujoy Mukherjee, Mr. Ashotosh Upadhyaya, Ms. Nimrat Singh, Ms. Tarini Kulkarni and Mr. Dhananjay Khanna, Advocates

Counsel for Defendants: Mr. Sharat Kapoor, Mr. Shubh Kapoor, Mr. Anirudh Dusaj and Ms. Bhavyah Garg, Advocates for D- 2; Ms. Shikha Sachdeva, Ms. Kriti Rathi and Ms. Annie Jacob, Advocates for D-1; Mr. Aditya Narayan Mahajan and Mr. Kara Aggarwal, Advocates for D- 14; Ms. Shruttima Ehersa, Mr. Rohan Ahuja, Ms. Diva Viswanath and Mr. Rahul Choudhary, Advocates for D-10

Title: JAIKISHAN KAKUBHAI SARAF ALIAS JACKIE SHROFF v. THE PEPPY STORE & ORS.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 602

Click here to read order