Delhi HC to pass interim order on actor Nagarjuna's plea to protect personality rights

New Delhi, Sep 25 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Thursday said it would pass an interim order on actor Akkineni Nagarjuna's plea seeking protection of his personality and publicity rights.

Justice Tejas Karia said, "When you can identify the URLs, the best is to direct them to take down….. Will pass orders." Recently, Bollywood actors Aishwarya Bachchan and her husband Abhishek Bachchan and filmmaker Karan Johar also approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights and the court granted them similar relief.

Advocate Pravin Anand, representing Nagarjuna, submitted he was aggrieved by three infringements, pornographic websites, sale of merchandise by unauthorisedly using the actor's personality traits and the various YouTube videos.

He sought permanent injunction, damages, rendition of accounts, delivery up and other consequential reliefs for unlawful misappropriation of his personality/publicity rights, infringement of performer’s moral rights under the Copyright Act, 1957, unfair competition, passing off and defamation by the defendants.

The court posted the matter for January 23, 2026.

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

Nagarjuna, who was also represented through advocates Vaibhav Gaggar, Vaishali Mittal and Vibhav Mithal, said some defendants, including unknown John Does, have published videos falsely linking him to terrorist organisations, promoting gambling and speculating on his private life in a defamatory manner, thereby tarnishing his reputation.

The plea said despite multiple legal notices sent to the defendants demanding cessation of infringing activities and removal of the objectionable content, most of them have failed to respond or take any corrective action.

"Given the unabated and willful acts of infringement, including the unauthorised hosting of pornographic content using the plaintiff’s name in domain URLs, the sale of unauthorised merchandise bearing the plaintiff’s image and name, the publication of AI-generated videos depicting him in a false and defamatory manner, and the deliberate false association of the plaintiff with terrorist organisations and gambling activities, he has been constrained to file the present suit...," it said. PTI SKV SKV AMK AMK