Delhi HC grants injunction in favour of Gavaskar in personality rights case

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday passed an ad-interim injunction protecting the personality and publicity rights of former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, directing social media intermediaries and e-commerce platforms to take down unauthorised content and merchandise misusing his name, image and likeness.

A single-judge Bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora ordered platforms, including Meta and X Corp, to ensure that infringing URLs attributing false statements to Gavaskar are removed within 72 hours.

The Delhi High Court clarified that if users fail to remove infringing content within the stipulated time, the social media platforms must disable access to such content.

Justice Arora also directed e-commerce platforms to take down listings of products being sold in Gavaskar’s name without authorisation, adding that if sellers fail to remove infringing products within 72 hours, the platforms will delist them.

The interim relief came in a suit filed by Gavaskar seeking protection of his personality rights against unauthorised exploitation across social media and online marketplaces.

The former cricketer alleged that several social media pages were attributing fabricated quotes to him, while multiple online sellers were offering fake autographed items and other merchandise falsely associated with him.

In an earlier hearing, Justice Arora had asked Gavaskar to provide the offending URLs to Google, Meta, and X, while directing the intermediaries to act on his request under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, within a week.

The Gavaskar case adds to a growing list of high-profile personalities invoking their personality and publicity rights before the Delhi High Court.

In recent months, actor Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (Jr NTR), spiritual leader and Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, actors Nagarjuna, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, filmmaker Karan Johar, and podcaster Raj Shamani have secured court protection against unauthorised use of their identity, likeness, or AI-generated imitations.

The Delhi High Court listed Gavaskar's suit for further hearing on May 22, 2026.