Actor Allu Arjun moves Delhi HC for protection of personality rights

NEW DELHI: Telugu actor Allu Arjun on Friday urged the Delhi High Court to stop the unauthorised use of his name, voice and likeness by several entities for commercial use and impersonation.

Justice Tushar Rao Gedela heard the lawsuit by the "Pushpa" star and indicated that the court would pass an interim order in his favour.

Seeking the protection of Arjun's personality rights, senior counsel Swathi Sukumar, representing the actor, submitted that his personality traits were being misappropriated for the sale of merchandise bearing his image and signature, operating voice-cloning platforms, AI chatbots and generation of obscene content.

"There is a 'fake-call Pushpa' app... What is frightening is that there is an app where you can speak to the AI likeness of this person. This is fertile ground for any kind of scam that involves the plaintiff. That's the concern. It's his face video calling...," submitted Sukumar.

The senior lawyer also informed that Arjun has several registered trademarks for his name.

The counsel for one of the defendant platforms hosting certain offending merchandise said the products have already been taken down.

Lawyers appearing for Meta and Google also said that several offending links, including apps, have been removed.

Several public figures, like actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Salman Khan, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary and podcaster Raj Shamani had earlier approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights. The high court granted them interim relief.

Recently, the high court also protected the personality rights of cricketer Gautam Gambhir and actors Sonakshi Sinha and Vivek Oberoi by granting interim relief.