Today, On 23rd December, The Delhi High Court has upheld Sunil Gavaskar’s personality rights, ordering the immediate removal of social media posts containing fake quotes and unauthorized merchandise. Users on platforms like Meta must delete infringing URLs within 72 hours, or the platform will be liable.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court instructed Meta, X Corp, and several e-commerce platforms to remove social media posts that incorrectly quote former Indian cricket captain Sunil Gavaskar, as well as unauthorized merchandise pages bearing his name.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora issued this interim injunction following a lawsuit by Gavaskar aimed at protecting his personality rights.
The Court mandated that users on Meta must eliminate the infringing URLs within 72 hours; failing that, the platform itself would be responsible for their removal.
A similar order was also given to X Corp.
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E-commerce sellers were likewise directed to take down listings misusing Gavaskar’s name to market their products.
During the previous hearing, the Court had instructed Gavaskar to provide the offending URLs to Google, Meta, and X, and had ordered those platforms to act on his request to remove content that infringes on his photos, name, and personality rights, with compliance expected within a week.
During Today’s hearing, Senior Advocate Gopal Jain, representing Gavaskar, indicated that Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) and IP logs of the users had been transmitted to him.
As a result, the Court directed him to amend the memo of parties to include the users.
Earlier, Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has moved the Delhi High Court asking for protection of his personality rights .
Gavaskar has asked the Court to stop several online and offline entities from using his name, image, voice, likeness, and overall persona without his permission.
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Gavaskar is the first cricketer to initiate legal action concerning personality rights.
Senior Advocate Gopal Jain, is representing Sunil Gavaskar.
The issue of personality rights has become very important in recent years because many celebrities have found their photos, videos, names, and voices being misused for advertisements, promotions, or content monetisation without their approval.
In the past, several well-known personalities have also approached the Delhi High Court for similar protection.
These include Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Nagarjuna, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Karan Johar, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and Jaggi Vasudev, who have all secured legal orders safeguarding their identity from unauthorised exploitation.
Recently, Salman Khan also filed a personality rights suit before the Delhi High Court seeking similar protection, reflecting the growing concern among celebrities about misuse of their public image in the digital age.
Case Title: Sunil Gavaskar v Cricket Tak (CricketTak557) and Others
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