The Delhi High Court has stepped in to protect Janhvi Kapoor from obscene and pornographic material circulating online, while at the same time drawing a line around what can and cannot be removed in the name of personality rights.Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, hearing Kapoor’s plea on Tuesday, passed an interim order directing the removal of certain online content concerning the actor. However, the court made it clear that it was not prepared to accept the petition in its entirety, observing that the reliefs sought by Kapoor were too broad.Kapoor had approached the court seeking action against more than 5,000 webpages and social media posts. Her plea covered allegedly pornographic AI-generated material, impersonation accounts, fake booking agencies and chatbots that she claimed were commercially exploiting her name, image and other personality attributes without her consent.The court asked Kapoor’s lawyers to narrow down the material that clearly falls within the category of unlawful content. It directed them to submit a tabulated list identifying webpages carrying “ex facie pornographic, obscene, prurient, lascivious” material that appeared to be directly monetising Kapoor’s personality rights through the sale of merchandise or services.“I am inclined to give you relief in these categories,” the Court stated.However, the court was far less receptive to Kapoor’s request for blanket action against fan pages. Justice Bhambhani pointed out that not every use of a celebrity’s name or image amounts to an infringement and warned against using personality rights as a tool to restrict legitimate expression.“We are not the conscience keepers of the nation. Solution may be worse than the problem. It was at the very root of free speech. You may not be misusing restraint order but there may be others who will…Fan pages may be lampooning, adulatory of your work, critical of your work. You don’t want fans? It is the digital world. No comments, no URLs…You will find yourself living in a cave,” it observed.The court also rejected Kapoor’s request for a dynamic injunction that could potentially result in the continuing removal of content as it appears online. Justice Bhambhani questioned how such an order could be applied to the vast and constantly changing digital ecosystem.“They should just be genuflecting in front of you? Stand and touch my feet? How can you shut down all fan clubs? You are a public personality. Who is immune these days? Everyone who is in public domain is being abused left, right and centre.” the Court stated.Another issue that came up during the hearing was the complicated relationship between copyright and personality rights. The court questioned whether simply selling a copyrighted photograph, artwork or product featuring a celebrity automatically amounts to commercially exploiting that person’s identity.“I have a photo and I have a right to sell it, how is it monetising you? Somebody writes a book so he cant sell it? Right to sell a copyrighted work is the copyright owners right. I am a potter, I make a mug, I put your likeness on it, I paint you or photograph you and sell it. Who owns the copyright then? Right of poster will be with the person who took the photograph. Is right to sell not part of it?” the Court questioned.Meta, represented by Advocate Varun Pathak, opposed Kapoor’s plea, particularly the demand concerning thousands of links. The platform argued that manually examining such a massive number of URLs was not realistically possible.“It is not prohibited by law to not have AI generated pictures. This people also have a right to livelihood. They want dynamic injunction of cleaning up internet,” he said.The court, however, cautioned Meta against going beyond its limited role as an intermediary and taking positions that could blur the distinction between a platform and a content regulator.“I urge you to not overstep your role. Intermediaries have no role, that itself would imply you have more interest.”Justice Bhambhani also indicated that the case could become an opportunity to bring greater clarity to the increasingly complex legal debate surrounding celebrity personality rights.“I would want you to assist me to bring some sanity in the concept of personality rights. It started as something small, done with good intentions. It is going out of hand.”The matter will next come up before the Delhi High Court on August 17.
