Delhi High Court To Pass Interim Order On Filmmaker Karan Johar's Plea For Protection Of Personality Rights

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday (September 17) orally indicated that it shall pass an interim injunction order in favour of Bollywood filmmaker and producer Karan Johar in his plea seeking protection of his personality rights against certain alleged infringing content. 

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that Defendants 14, 15 and 16 which includes social media intermediaries Google, Meta and X will provide Basic Subscriber Information details along with IT log details. 

The court also issued summons to defendant entities 2-5 and 7-10 (online platforms like Giphy, Pinterest, etc.) in Johar's main lawsuit. 

"Summons are not being issued to the remaining defendants 11-16 as they are being impleaded for compliances and the issuance of summons will be considered on the next date of hearing," the court said. 

The court further orally said, "In the IA (interim relief application) I will pass a detailed order. Injunction to be granted". 

The Court also recorded submission of counsel for defendant 11 (Redbubble) that it will take steps to take down the infringing comment enlisted in plaint within a week.

Johar in his lawsuit claimed that various entities, including John Does (unknown entities), have been using his name, image etc without his consent for monetary gains.

Senior advocate Rajshekhar Rao appearing for Johar contended that the entities were using innuendos to attack his personality. "This is an innuendo for orientation. This is an innuendo specifically which attacks my personality," he said.

"What happens is that they put up something against me. And then there are comments...somewhere along the way I am ridiculed that I have walked out in a certain kind of way. I have to be thick skinned, i'll keep it on the side. I have advised my client. But the objective is this...somewhere along the way if they start using this, it starts a diatribe against me online, and then use that to monetize then there is a problem. That is something the court may consider," he said. 

He further said, "Broad over-arching argument is do I have a right to prevent somebody from using my attributes per say. If it is a fair comment then no difficulty...This has been going on forever and I have chosen to look the other way. But I have realized now that in the recent past this has become a trend of people to start doing this not only towards me but to certain others as well. The whole objective is to get traffic. The fact that you get traffic and therefore you have something else to do with your time is problematic..."

Referring to certain comments Rao said, "Don't steep to ridicule in public domain. Somewhere along the way that line has to be drawn...your ladyship is right I must equally be responsible and somewhere I will also draw the line. I choose to look the other way for 100s and 1000s of things but some things are non-negotiable". 

In this plea, Johar has also alleged unauthorised sale of merchandise using his name and image, disparity and obscenity, domain name, impersonation and fake profile. “I (Johar) have a right to ensure that no one unauthorisedly uses my persona, face or voice,” he argued.

Rao was assisted by Advocates Nizam Pasha, Sidharth Kaushik, and DSK Legal Mumbai (Parag Khandhar and Chandrima Mitra). 

In the previous hearing the court had noted that there was an ambiguity in the list of URLs vis-à-vis social media platforms and had directed Johar to provide the list enlisting the URLs against which directions were sought at ex-parte stage with respect to certain defendants. The court had asked the plaintiff to identify the category which forms the basis of seeking directions i.e., disparagement, obscenity, etc.