New Delhi, Nov 25.
The Delhi High Court on Friday issued an omnibus order against the world at large restraining the use of actor Amitabh Bachchan’s name, image, voice or any of his other personal attributes without his consent.
“This landmark verdict will injunct any person from using the name, image, voice and other personality attributes of Mr Bachchan without his consent and authorization by any means, physical or digital,” Ameet Naik, Joint Managing Partner of Anand and Naik, said.
“Indian jurisprudence will finally develop and evolve on personality rights and Mr Amitabh Bachchan is the right personality to set this trend.”
“We are pleased that the Delhi High Court has delivered this landmark verdict and am grateful to Mr. Harish Salve and Mr. Praveen Anand for this trend-setting order which will help talent in our country to protect their personality rights.”
The verdict also paves the way for the evolution of law on personality rights in the country, which protects an individual’s right to personality and publicity, rights under copyright and common law rights, he said.
Justice Navin Chawla’s order, is a “John Doe” order, which has a wider ambit, since it would be impossible for Mr Bachchan to keep a track of the recurring infringements. It is not only against the defendants namely Rajat Nagi, Rana Partap Singh & others but also the world-at-large for misusing Mr Bachchan’s name.
The misuse of his name, image and voice, especially by mobile application developers, people conducting lottery by illegally linking themselves with KBC, book publishers, T-shirt vendors and various other businesses, prompted Mr Bachchan to approach the High Court, a press release said.
The press release issued by Anand and Naik said that Mr Bachchan sought a restraining order against the use of his personality traits by all and sundry. Senior advocate Harish Salve along with Ameet Naik and Pravin Anand appeared for Mr Bachchan in the High Court.
They pointed out that the infringers have illegally registered Mr Bachchan’s name as web-domain names such as www.amitabhbachchan.com and www.amitabh bachchan.in.
The High Court injuncted the registrants of the domain names from creating any third-party rights on it and directed the Telecom Department and the Ministry of Electronics & IT to pull down all links/websites that infringe upon Mr Bachchan’s attributes.
The court also directed telecom service providers to block access to all phone numbers used by the defendants to circulate messages.
