The Delhi High Court granted interim protection to personality rights of Gautam Gambhir. Justice Jyoti Singh held that unauthorised commercial use of his name, image, or reputation infringes his publicity rights and unfairly exploits his established goodwill.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has issued an interim order safeguarding the personality rights of Gautam Gambhir, coach of India’s men’s national cricket team.
Justice Jyoti Singh noted that Gambhir is among India’s most decorated cricketers, and that content or merchandise that commercially benefits from his considerable goodwill and reputation without his permission infringes his personality and publicity rights.
Accordingly, the Bench barred several named parties and unidentified persons from unauthorizedly using Gambhir’s name, image or likeness particularly via AI-generated content and online merchandise.
The Court said,
“Till the next date of hearing, Defendants No. 1 to 10 as also their agents, representatives and all persons claiming through them or acting on their behalf are restrained from using and/or in any manner, directly or indirectly, exploiting or misappropriating Plaintiff’s: (i) names Gautam Gambhir, Gauti and GG; (ii) image; (iii) voice; and (iv) likeness and/or any other attribute of his persona, without his authorization or consent, for any commercial and/or personal gain,”
In his suit, Gambhir alleged a coordinated campaign of digital impersonation, AI-generated deepfakes and unauthorised commercial use of his persona.
The petition stated that from 2025 onwards there has been a marked rise in fabricated digital material about Gambhir across Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube and Facebook. Multiple accounts reportedly used AI techniques, face‑swapping and voice‑cloning to produce convincing videos that falsely portrayed Gambhir making statements he never made including a fake “resignation announcement” that attracted over 2.9 million views.
The petition also said major e-commerce sites were listing posters and other merchandise bearing his name and likeness without permission.
After hearing arguments, the Court granted the interim relief in Gambhir’s favour.
Advocates Jai Anant Dehadrai and Srutee Priyadarshini represented Gautam Gambhir.
Case Title: Gautam Gambhir v Ashok Kumar:John Doe & Ors
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