Delhi HC protects actor Ravi Kishan’s personality rights, restrains unauthorised use of traits

In an interim relief to Bharatiya Janata Party MP and actor Ravindra Shukla, popularly known as Ravi Kishan, the Delhi High Court has restrained several individuals and online platforms from using his name, image, likeness, voice, and other identifying attributes without prior approval.

Justice Jyoti Singh passed the order on July 2 while hearing a suit filed by Mr. Shukla alleging widespread misuse of his identity across social media and websites with AI-generated content.

The plea stated that several entities were violating the actor’s personality rights by uploading pornographic content using his name as keyword on webpages and as part of URLs, which was causing irreparable damage to his image and reputation in public.

One of the defendants had posted audios and videos of vulgar songs with captions superimposed on a video featuring the actos at a religious ceremony with a political leader of a State which wrongfully suggested that he was a ‘political middleman’.

Another AI-generated video made fun of Mr. Shukla’s diction, the plea stated.

The MP from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh has also challenged unauthorised use of his name, image, and likeness for a radio programme on the channel Ishq 104.8 FM by distorting his in the radio programme ‘What is Love with Kavi Kishan’.

Restraining the various defendants from violating his personality rights, the court noted that the actor has the exclusive right to protect the various attributes of his personality such as name, image, voice, likeness, and restrained third parties from using and commercially exploiting these attributes without his express permission and authority.

The court highlighted that Mr. Shukla has appeared in over 750 movies spanning across genres, languages, and audiences with roles widely acclaimed across all sections of the society.

“Even in the field of the politics, Plaintiff (Mr. Shukla) has made significant contributions towards empowerment of youth and worked towards infrastructure development as also development and reforms in education, cinema and health sectors and was awarded the Sansad Ratna Award for exemplary performance in parliamentary duties,” the court added.