Hrithik Roshan has just successfully added his name to the growing list of celebrities who have managed to safeguard their personality rights with legal intervention.
Now seeing the volume of celebrities willingly going to court over the matter may very well look like a ‘trend’ to the layman, but personality rights, and their protection especially for public figures is actually incredibly important as we rapidly settle into the age of artificial intelligence.
An explainer on the Lakshmikumaran Sridharan Attorneys website asserts, “The word ‘celebrity’ is perceived by a large chunk of population as an honour and a reward for success. Sportspersons and artists earn it by skill, businessman and TV personalities earn it by wit, politicians earn it by votes and for some it is spontaneous like in the case of princes and princesses, who acquire it by birth or by marriage. Certain others may acquire it by their chance involvement in newsworthy events.
Pertinently, there are two discernible facets when a celebrity wants to protect their personality rights: first, the right to protect one’s image from being commercially exploited without permission by treating it as a tort of passing off; mainly termed as publicity rights which comes under the ambit of IP Law and second, the right to privacy which entails one’s right to be left alone.”
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was among the first to move the court for the protection of her personality rights and was followed suit by husband Abhishek Bachchan, filmmaker and producer Karan Johar, spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and even journalist Sudhir Chaudhary. Now, this exclusive but growing by the day list also includes Hrithik’s name.
As per a Law Beat report, the actor was granted relief by the Delhi High Court on Wednesday with directions to remove specific posts infringing upon his personality rights with the unauthorized use of his name, image and likeness. The one thing that Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora however, declined to order the immediate take down of were the fan pages dedicated to the actor.
The Law Beat report quotes Justice Arora as stating, “We can’t have fan clubs taken down at this ex parte stage. Let those fans come; Mr. Roshan will then have to seek takedown of each fan club. He can’t pick and choose. From whatever law I have studied, I’m not willing at this stage to order removal of fan pages. We’ll have Meta give you BSI details; you may implead them, we’ll hear them, and then decide the issue.”
The matter will next be heard on March 27, 2026.
