The Delhi High Court has ruled in favour of Janhvi Kapoor's plea.
She approached the court seeking the takedown of thousands of webpages featuring obscene content related to her.
The court also clarified the space for free expression.
The Delhi High Court has intervened to protect Janhvi Kapoor from online obscene and pornographic material while clarifying boundaries regarding which can and cannot be erased in the name of personality rights. Kapoor had tapped the court with a plea to remove more than 5000 webpages and social media posts that spanned AI impersonation, deepfake pornographic material, chatbots that were allegedly commerically exploiting her name, image and personality without her consent. Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani has passed the interim order, directing the takedown of online pornographic material.
Janhvi Kapoor Court Case
According to a LiveLaw report, the judge said the court favoured to grant protection to Kapoor in three broad categories: content that is clearly pornographic or obscene; content that appears to directly monetise her personality rights; and content that uses her name or likeness to promote the sale of merchandise or services.
“I want you all (counsels) to assist me to give sanity to the concept of personality rights. It is going out of hand,” Justice Bhambhani insisted during the hearing.
The Court expressed its reluctance to engineer removal of fan pages. It emphasised a line between protecting a public figure's personality rights and the space for genuine expression and criticism.
Delhi HC Ruling In Favour Of Janhvi Kapoor's Petition
"We are not the conscience keepers of the nation. Solution may be worse than the problem. It was at the very root of free speech. You may not be misusing restraint order but there may be others who will...Fan pages may be lampooning, adulatory of your work, critical of your work. You don't want fans? It is the digital world. No comments, no URLs...You will find yourself living in a cave," it observed.
Declining the plea to grant a dynamic injunction, the Court stated, "They should just be genuflecting in front of you? Stand and touch my feet? How can you shut down all fan clubs? You are a public personality. Who is immune these days? Everyone who is in public domain is being abused left, right and centre."
Appearing for Meta, Advocate Varun Pathak questioned the petition, stating that it is not humanly possible to check and verify the 5,000 links that have been flagged in the plaint.
The next date of hearing is August 17.
Advocates Asav Rajan Arora and Abha Shah, partners at IndiaLaw LLP represented Kapoor.
