Mumbai: Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar accused the Delhi High Court of equality on the websites without consent on their names, photographs and social media platforms and websites, demanding the security of their personality rights.
The matter was heard by Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora today, when he appeared for senior advocate Rajasekhar Rao Johar and alleged that his name was being misused.
Looking for Johar, senior advocate Rajasekhar Rao argued that the identity of the filmmaker was being exploited, his paintings and names were misused to raise money and operate unauthorized fan pages.
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Rao said, “There is a line between fun and exploitation. The more the meme is as viral, the more money you earn. I have the right to ensure that no one uses my personality or characteristics without my consent,” said Rao.
Johar reported that “Various pages on various platforms are in my name,” emphasizing that misuse expanded beyond the memes.
Justice Arora noted concerns and indicated that the court may pass the la-down order for specific violation pages, taking precautions against giving a blanket prohibition.
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The judge clarified that Johar was free to return to court. If fresh violations took place, commenting: “If they don’t work, you come to court.”
Emphasizing a concentrated approach, Justice Arora noticed: “inequality, vulgarity, misuse of personality rights, domain name, we can take it. Someone is selling goods. These are the three things: if you specifically identify, this court will order.”
The bench also indicated that a mechanism could be placed to address future violations.
Justice Arora said, “We can ask them to take action within 24 hours.”
“The only thing we have to do is when we pass the order today, it will be for specific pages. For any other pages, you can give them a notice, and they will take them down. If they do not take them down, you can return to court,” said Justice Arora.
Advocate Varun Pathak, a lawyer for the meta platforms, warned against the sweeping order, arguing that many flagged posts were not defamation.
“Passing a blanket prohibition will cause floods for litigation,” he said, warning that general users who post jokes or fan materials may be punished incorrectly.
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Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora agreed and said that not every fan page could be ordered to be blocked or taken down.
“Mems are not necessarily uneven. We cannot have prohibitory orders at an open end.”
He asked Johar’s lawyer to differentiate between classifying alleged violations, inequality, sale of goods and domain misuse, so that only specific examples could be targeted.