“As far as the child is concerned, what is her personality right?” Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani of the Delhi High Court (HC) asked today, while hearing Aaradhya Bachchan’s suit against fake videos about her health. He said the question ‘remains unanswered so far,’ even after Aaradhya’s counsel began detailed arguments on it.
Abhishek Bachchan filed the suit on behalf of his daughter in 2023 against YouTube channels and websites that published videos falsely claiming she was seriously ill, hospitalised or dead. He is also a co-plaintiff, claiming the videos infringe his own personality rights. The court issued notices to several channels and websites in February 2025.
Aaradhya’s suit is one of three the court picked on September 28 to define the scope of personality rights, alongside suits by actors Janhvi Kapoor and Vivek Oberoi. The court will apply the principles from these three to the other pending suits.
Defamation or personality rights? Justice Bhambhani said Amitabh Bachchan’s personality deserves protection because of his achievements. “He’s become a brand in himself. I understand that,” he said. He then asked what right Aaradhya holds on her own, apart from her grandfather’s fame.
To test the claim, he took the example of an ordinary person, “Ashok Kumar,” falsely reported to have cancer. He said such fake news can be challenged in court under defamation or another civil wrong, and asked whether it can be stopped as an intellectual property (IP) claim.
The judge agreed the videos about Aaradhya are “in very, very bad taste.” His doubt concerned which law applies.
What Aaradhya’s counsel argued:
“If the personality element is being used as a vehicle, then whether the news is property or not, it is a violation of the right to publicity.” – Advocate Pravin Anand, counsel for Aaradhya Bachchan.
Anand said the suit rests on both celebrity and non-celebrity status.
- Family name for views: “Why is the person using the whole family? Because he wants to attract more eyeballs,” Anand said. He said this sets the case apart from the Ashok Kumar example.
- Harm to relatives: He cited the Anil Kapoor judgment, which extends protection to a celebrity’s “family and friends who would not like to see his image, name, and other elements being misused.”
He also said personality and publicity rights mean the same thing, while privacy remains a separate right.
What the suit claims:
- Blame on parents: The videos portray Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as failing to get Aaradhya timely medical help.
- Profit motive: The plaint accuses the uploaders of “spreading fake and/or derogatory information about a minor child” “with a view to making illicit gains.”
- Scale: Counsel said at least 13 such videos exist, with lakhs of views on a single link.
Where the judge’s doubt comes from: Anand relied on a US treatise on publicity rights by J Thomas McCarthy, which says courts should not draw a line between celebrities and non-celebrities. Justice Bhambhani said the passages “in fact create further doubt in my mind.” He noted the treatise also says defamation concepts such as malice should stay out of publicity law, and that celebrity status matters only for the commercial value of a person’s identity.
What the court wants answered: Justice Bhambhani wants counsel to answer three questions he first put to them in the same suit in August:
- “If a family name is akin to having a reputation attached to a trademark, how far down the generations does such reputation of family name inure?”
- “Does fake news, even if of egregiously despicable nature, amount to an intellectual property (IP) rights violation? If yes, then what kind of IP right is violated?”
- “Can the jurisprudential concept of defamation (slander and libel) or any other form of injury to reputation be conflated with the recognised concept of intellectual property rights?”
The answers will decide whether relatives of celebrities, and people with no commercial fame, can seek personality rights orders against fake news. At that August hearing, the judge said, “The concept of personality rights is acquiring amoebic proportions. Everything is personality rights. But whose personality rights?”
On September 28, he added another question, asking Anand whether using a celebrity’s photograph can violate personality rights when the copyright belongs to the photographer, LiveLaw reported.
Anand will conclude his arguments on October 1 in the post-lunch session.
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