Delhi High Court shields Raj Shamani’s Personality Rights but declines to curb parody

The Delhi High Court has granted interim protection to podcaster and entrepreneur Raj Shamani, restraining the unauthorised commercial use of his name, likeness and other personality attributes, while making it clear that parody and satire will not be covered by the injunction at this stage, as per a report by Bar and Bench.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora issued an order on Monday directing that AI-generated content, deepfakes and other manipulated digital material purporting to feature Shamani cannot be created or circulated without consent. The judge stated that the court would pass the injunction but clarified that it would not, for now, restrain parody or satirical content, asserting that combining those issues with unauthorised commercial exploitation would complicate the trial. The court informed Shamani that he may file a separate cause of action if he wishes to pursue claims relating to parody videos.

Senior advocate Diya Kapur, appearing for Shamani, informed the court that he is a leading podcaster who hosts the show Figuring Out, featuring conversations with well-known personalities. She stated that deepfakes showing him endorsing products were proliferating across platforms, and that websites falsely claimed to facilitate access to him. She pointed specifically to fake endorsements reportedly run by an entity called Tax Buddy, and to Telegram chatbots impersonating Shamani by offering advice, soliciting funds and promoting crypto schemes while using his name and image to suggest that he personally operated the channels.

Kapur further submitted that obscene online channels had used his content without authorisation, and that hashtags bearing his name were being deployed to capture traffic and views. The plaint describes widespread misuse of his identity through AI-generated videos, morphed content and unauthorised reproductions of podcast material, which he states are monetised for commercial gain at the cost of his personality rights, trademark rights and goodwill. He maintains that such content diminishes his reputation and undermines his ability to control the economic value of his identity.

During the hearing, the court indicated it was not inclined to grant relief regarding hashtags and expressed hesitation about issuing orders against memes that might demean Shamani, suggesting that these issues could be raised separately. The court also questioned Telegram regarding the chatbots impersonating the podcaster. Advocate Madhav Khosla, representing Telegram, responded that some of the requested directions were overly broad but confirmed that the platform would take down certain chatbots.

Shamani was represented by senior advocate Diya Kapur along with advocates Nakul Gandhi, Mujeeb, Tanish Gupta, Siddhi Sahoo, Avi Kaushik, Raghav Kumar and Aditya Ladha.