Actor Rakesh Bedi has approached the Delhi High Court to protect his personality rights, the right of a well-known person to control the commercial use of their name, voice, image and likeness. Filed as a suit against unnamed ‘John Doe’ defendants, it joins a fast-growing line of celebrity cases in which courts have stepped in against unauthorised use, increasingly by way of AI-generated content and deepfakes.
New Delhi: Actor Rakesh Bedi has moved the Delhi High Court seeking protection of his personality rights [Rakesh Bedi v. John Doe and Others].
The matter was listed before Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, and, upon mentioning, was directed to be placed before the bench dealing with matters of the Intellectual Property Division (IPD) of the High Court.
What personality rights are
Personality rights, also called publicity rights, refer to the right of a person, typically a well-known individual, to control the commercial use of the identifiable attributes of their persona, such as their name, image, likeness, voice, signature and other distinctive traits. The premise is that a celebrity’s identity has an economic value built through their own effort and reputation, and that others cannot exploit it for commercial gain, or misuse it in a misleading or derogatory manner, without consent. A suit seeking their protection typically asks the court to restrain such unauthorised use and to have the offending content taken down.
Such suits are frequently filed against “John Doe” defendants, that is, unknown or unidentified persons, because the misuse often originates from anonymous online sources; a John Doe order allows the relief to operate against unnamed infringers and the intermediaries hosting the content, and to extend to persons later identified.
A growing line of cases
Bedi’s suit is the latest in a rapidly expanding body of personality-rights litigation before the Delhi High Court. The Court has, in recent months, passed orders protecting the personality rights of a range of public figures, including actors such as Tabu, Allu Arjun, Mohanlal, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Kajol, R. Madhavan and Jr NTR, cricketers Abhishek Sharma, Yuvraj Singh and Sunil Gavaskar, and public figures such as Shashi Tharoor and Pawan Kalyan, among others; similar suits have been filed by figures including Salman Khan, and orders have protected entrepreneurs, singers and content creators.
A recurring theme in the more recent matters is the misuse of artificial intelligence, with public figures complaining of AI-generated or deepfake content that appropriates their image or voice. The Court has, for instance, protected the personality rights of a journalist who sought relief against allegedly misleading and AI-generated videos, and passed a John Doe order for a well-known podcaster, recognising his standing as a content creator.
Why it matters
For public figures, personality-rights litigation has become the principal legal route to counter the unauthorised commercial exploitation of their identity, a problem sharpened by generative AI, which makes it easy to fabricate a celebrity’s face or voice at scale. Where earlier misuse took the form of counterfeit merchandise or unauthorised endorsements, the current wave often involves deepfake videos, cloned voices and AI images, and the personality-rights suit, with its John Doe mechanism and takedown directions, has become the courts’ chosen tool to address it quickly.
At the same time, the courts have begun to mark the limits of such protection. Personality rights protect against commercial misappropriation and false or derogatory use; they do not extend to silencing legitimate speech, criticism, commentary, parody or news reporting about a public figure. The Delhi High Court has, in some recent matters, declined to grant a blanket injunction covering all use of a person’s identity, confining relief to specific categories such as obscene or clearly infringing content, and directing those aggrieved by criticism to the remedy of defamation instead. This balance, between protecting a celebrity’s identity and preserving free expression, is likely to shape how Bedi’s suit is dealt with.
At this stage, the suit has only been filed and directed to the appropriate bench; no order on its merits has yet been reported. It will now be taken up by the Intellectual Property Division of the High Court, which will consider what relief, if any, is warranted on the facts pleaded, in line with the principles the Court has been developing in this fast-evolving area.
Case Title: Rakesh Bedi v. John Doe and Others
Court: High Court of Delhi at New Delhi (listed before Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani; directed to the Intellectual Property Division bench)
Status: Suit filed seeking protection of personality rights; sent to the IPD bench. No order on merits reported.