Act in 7 days to protect Sunil Gavaskar’s personality rights, Delhi HC tells social media platforms

The Delhi High Court on Friday directed social media intermediaries to act within seven days on former cricketer and commentator Sunil Gavaskar’s plea seeking protection of his personality rights.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora asked Gavaskar’s counsel to first approach the social media intermediaries with his grievances.

The high court directed the social media intermediaries to treat Gavaskar’s suit as a complaint under the Information and Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and take the necessary steps within seven days.

The court said in case the social media intermediaries had any reservations to any weblink given by Gavaskar, they should inform him.

It directed the plaintiff to provide within 24 hours the URLs in respect of which take down is sought to the social media intermediaries.

Gavaskar approached the high court seeking to prevent the unauthorised use of his name, images, persona and likeness by social media platforms and e-commerce websites, and to protect his personality rights.

The right to publicity, popularly known as personality rights, is the right to protect, control and profit from one’s image, name or likeness.

Recently, Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, her husband Abhishek Bachchan and her mother-in-law Jaya Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan and Ajay Devgn, filmmaker Karan Johar, singer Kumar Sanu, Telugu actor Akkineni Nagarjuna, ‘Art of Living’ founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary and podcaster Raj Shamani also approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights. The court granted them interim relief.

Bollywood actor Salman Khan and Telugu actor NTR Rao Junior have also approached the Delhi High Court seeking protection of their personality rights.