Delhi High Court has issued an interim injunction prohibiting individuals or entities from violating the publicity and personality rights of renowned Hindi film actor Amitabh Bachchan.
The single-judge bench of Navin Chawla granted an ad interim ex parte injunction in favour of the actor and restrained the defendants from infringing his publicity or personality rights by misusing his name, voice, image or any other attribute exclusive to him in a case filed by Bachchan for protection of his publicity rights against the fake Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) lottery fraud.
“Mr Bachchan filed this claim on personality, which includes all of his characteristics, including his voice, his appearance, his portrait and his line delivery,” said Ameet Naik, founder and managing partner of Naik Naik and Company, which represented the actor.
“It is a ‘John Doe’ order, which is [global] and has a wider ambit, since it would be impossible for Mr Bachchan to keep a track of recurring infringements,” said a statement from the law firms Naik Naik and Anand and Anand (jointly representing Bachchan as “Anand & Naik”).
The infringers had illegally registered Bachchan’s name using web domain names such as “www.amitabhbachchan.com” and “www.amitabhbachchan.in”. The court directed the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics & IT to pull down all links and websites that infringe on “Mr Bachchan’s attributes”.
Independent senior advocate Harish Salve represented Bachchan, aided by Praveen Anand, managing partner of Anand and Anand, and Ameet Naik and Madhu Gadodia, his deputy managing partner. The trio represented Bachchan under “Anand & Naik”, a joint venture between Naik Naik & Co and Anand and Anand.
