New Delhi: The Delhi High Court, on Friday, directed social media intermediaries to remove all content infringing the personality rights of former Indian cricket captain Sunil Gavaskar and Andhra Pradesh deputy chief minister Pawan Kalyan, including the unauthorised use of their names and photographs, within seven days.
The bench of Justice Manmeet P S Arora issued the order while hearing suits by Gavaskar and Kalyan’s suits seeking protection of their personality rights, as reported by Hindustan Times.
During the hearing, Gavaskar’s lawyer cited fake critical comments on Indian men’s cricket team coach Gautam Gambhir and other cricketers and submitted that his client’s personality rights were being infringed without his consent.
Kalyan’s lawyer submitted that they had written to the social media intermediaries to take down the infringing content, including AI videos on Google and fake association content on e-commerce platforms.
The Court asked the social media companies to treat Gavaskar’s suit as a complaint under Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and take necessary steps within seven days.
“Plaintiff is directed to provide the intermediaries with specific URLs within 48 hours from today. The URLs may be provided through counsels who entered an appearance. The defendants (intermediaries) are directed to communicate their decision to the plaintiff within a week,” the Court said in Gavaskar’s case.
For Kalyan, the bench directed the intermediaries to act on his complaint in seven days.
The Court issued the direction a day after it asked social media intermediaries to take down content infringing on Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s personality rights in three days.
On November 27, the Court had said individuals must first approach social media platforms (intermediaries) to remove infringing or objectionable content (like deepfakes or personality right violations) before seeking court injunctions, establishing this as a statutory first step for urgent takedowns.
