Salman Khan, a renowned actor with over three decades of career establishing immense goodwill and celebrity status, filed a commercial suit against John Does and various defendants including online platforms and sellers for misappropriation of his personality/publicity rights, trademark and copyright infringement, performer's rights violation, and passing off through unauthorized sale of merchandise featuring his name, image, voice, likeness, and spreading fake news; procedural steps included granting exemptions from filing clear/original documents and pre-institution mediation due to urgency, registering the suit, issuing summons to identified infringing defendants while treating platforms as proforma defendants for compliance without summons. The court, perusing the plaint and documents, held prima facie that Salman Khan's personality traits are protectable under common law as per precedents like DM Entertainment, Anil Kapoor, and Jackie Shroff cases, finding unauthorized commercial exploitation causes irreparable harm with balance of convenience favoring him. Ex-parte ad-interim injunction granted restraining infringing defendants from using his attributes, with directions to proforma defendants to remove/suspend/block specified URLs/domains/accounts within 72 hours, listing for further proceedings.
- Celebrities acquire proprietary rights over personality attributes like name, image, voice, and likeness through goodwill, entitling injunction against unauthorized commercial exploitation: Salman Khan vs Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors., Para 34.
- Unauthorized use of celebrity personality for merchandise or fake news dissemination violates publicity rights, warranting ex-parte interim relief upon prima facie case of irreparable harm: Salman Khan vs Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors., Para 35.
- Online platforms as proforma defendants may be directed to remove infringing content without adversarial summons, subject to future issuance if position turns hostile: Salman Khan vs Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors., Para 23.
- Exemption from pre-institution mediation under Section 12A Commercial Courts Act permissible for suits seeking urgent interim relief: Salman Khan vs Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors., Para 12.
[Readers are advised not to treat this as substitute for legal advise as it may contain errors in perception, interpretation, and presentation]
[Written By: Advocate Ajay Amitabh Suman, IP Adjutor [Patent and Trademark Attorney], High Court of Delhi]
