It is most refreshing, most reassuring, most reinvigorating and most rejuvenating to learn that none other than the Delhi High Court itself in a most learned, laudable, landmark, logical and latest judgment titled Akkineni Nagarjuna vs Www.BFXXX.Org & Ors in CS(COMM) 1023/2025 that was pronounced as recently as on 25.09.2025 has passed an interim order protecting the personality rights of Telugu actor Akkineni Nagarjuna thus ruling in his favour by restraining rightly various entities from misusing his image, name, voice or other elements of his persona for monetary gains without his consent or authorization. It must be noted that the Single Judge Bench comprising of Hon’ble Mr Justice Tejas Karia who authored this most commendable, courageous, cogent and creditworthy judgment minced absolutely just no words to hold in no uncertain terms that Nagarjuna’s name, image, likeness and persona have acquired a unique distinctiveness and any third party found using any elements of his persona is bound to cause confusion and deception amongst the general public regarding affiliation with/sponsorship. We need to note that the Bench also maintained and acknowledged that “prima facie” it was clear that the attributes of the actor’s persona, including his name and images are being misused by various online handles/entities, without any authorization from him. The Bench thus very rightly granted him the relief which he sought from the Delhi High Court. It must also be borne in mind that the interim order will remain in force till January 23 2026, when the court will next hear the matter.
At the very outset, this brief, brilliant, bold and balanced judgment authored by the Single Judge Bench comprising of Hon’ble Mr Justice Tejas Karia of the Delhi High Court sets the ball in motion by first and foremost putting forth precisely in para 19 that, “Issue Summons. The Learned Counsel for Defendant Nos. 13 and 14 accepts Summons.”
As we see, the Bench then mentions in para 34 that, “Issue Notice. The Learned Counsel for Defendant Nos. 13 and 14 accepts Notice.”
No doubt, the Bench then very rightly directs in para 35 holding that, “Notice be served to all the remaining Defendants through all permissible modes upon filing of the Process Fees.”
While laying bare the purpose of the suit filed, the Bench then discloses in para 36 stating that, “The Present Suit has been filed by the Plaintiff, inter alia, seeking permanent injunction restraining misappropriation of personality/publicity rights, infringement of performer’s rights and passing off.”
To put things in perspective, the Bench then envisages in para 37 that, “Mr. Pravin Anand, the learned Counsel for the Plaintiff made the following submissions:
37.1 The Plaintiff is an Indian citizen, aged about 65 years, and resides in Hyderabad, Telangana. He is one of the most respected, acclaimed celebrated actors, producer, entrepreneur and a revered veteran of the Indian film industry, having featured in over 95 feature films. His contributions have earned him numerous accolades making him one of the most decorated and celebrated actors in the South Indian cinema.
37.2 The Plaintiff’s image as a respected public personality is the result of over four decades of dedicated work, across different fields, which has earned him immense recognition and credibility among the public and the film fraternity alike. The Plaintiff has established exceptional goodwill and reputation in the realm of Indian cinema through his remarkable contributions and achievements. With a career spanning several decades, his consistent dedication to his craft, versatile acting skills, and charismatic on-screen presence have garnered him immense respect and admiration within the industry and amongst the members of the public.
37.3 The extensive goodwill and reputation that the Plaintiff has built for himself is evident from the fact that on social media platforms such as X, the Plaintiff has garnered 6.3 million followers.
37.4 The Plaintiff is a person of celebrity status, and possesses personality/publicity rights over all facets of his persona. The Plaintiff has the exclusive rights to control the use of his name, likeness, image, persona, voice, mannerisms, gestures and other uniquely identifiable characteristics associated with him. The right to publicity/personality rights protects the Plaintiff from unauthorized appropriation of his persona that would prevent any third party from exploiting these rights without his express consent.
37.5 Moreover, the Plaintiff’s name, image, likeness and persona have acquired a unique distinctiveness. Any third party found using any of the above stated elements of the Plaintiff’s persona is bound to cause confusion and deception amongst the general public regarding affiliation with/sponsorship by the Plaintiff.
37.6 Defendant No. 1 is the website ‘www.bfxxx.org’ that is unauthorizedly using the Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted on it. The Plaintiff has addressed a legal notice to Defendant No.1 on the email address ‘pornworked@gmail.com’ that was associated with it, in order to address the said violation. However, the said legal notice has not been responded to by Defendant No.1.
37.7 Defendant No. 2 is the website ‘www.tubewap.xyz’ that is unauthorizedly using the Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted on it. The Plaintiff has addressed a legal notice Defendant No. 2 on the email address ‘xxlx.mobi@gmail.com’ that was associated with it, in order to address the said violation. However, the said legal notice has not been responded to by Defendant No. 2.
37.8 Defendant No. 3 is the website ‘www.xxxxpornvideo.com’ that is unauthorizedly using the Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted on it. The Plaintiff has addressed a legal notice to Defendant No. 3 on the email address ‘pornworked@gmail.com’ that was associated with it to address the said violation. However, the said legal notice has not been responded to by Defendant No.3.
37.9 Defendant No. 4 is the website ‘www.xxxv.mobi’ that is unauthorizedly using the Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted on it. The Plaintiff has addressed a legal notice to Defendant No.4 on the email address ‘projman69@gmail.com’ that was associated with it to address the said violation. However, the said legal notice has not been responded to by Defendant No.4.
37.10 Defendant No. 5 is the website ‘www.alldesiporn.com’ that is unauthorizedly using the Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted on it. As per the WhoIs details of Defendant No. 5, an entity called ‘PrivacyGuardian.org’, impleaded as Defendant No. 7, is reflected as the registrant of the website ‘www.alldesiporn.com’ with the email address ‘privacyguardian.org’. The Plaintiff addressed a legal notice to Defendant No. 7 at the said email address in order to address the violation of its rights. However, the said notice has not been responded to till date. Further inquiries on the internet reflected that Defendant No. 7 entity is engaged in the business of providing proxy registration services.
37.11 Defendant No. 6 is the website ‘www.xomass.com’ that is violating the Plaintiff’s rights by unauthorizedly using the Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted on it. As per the WhoIs details of Defendant No. 6, an entity called ‘Withheld for Privacy’, impleaded as Defendant No. 8, with email address ‘withheldforprivacy.com’, is reflected as the registrant of the website ‘www.xomass.com’. The Plaintiff addressed a legal notice to Defendant No. 8 at the said email address in order to address the violation of its rights. However, the said notice has not been responded to till date. Further inquiries on the internet reflected that Defendant No. 8 entity is also involved in the business of providing proxy registration services.
37.12 Defendant No. 9 is the Domain Name Registrar (“DNR”) of the websites ‘www.tubepatrol.cc’, ‘www.justindianporn.info’, ‘www.kompoz2.com’ and ‘www.porno-zona.com’, which are unauthorizedly using Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted by them. The email address ‘admin@zmcash.com’ relates to the websites ‘www.tubepatrol.cc’ and ‘www.justindianporn.info’. However, the Plaintiff’s legal notice to ‘www.tubepatrol.cc’ and ‘www.justindianporn.info’ to address the violation of the Plaintiff’s rights on the said email address has return undelivered. Moreover, the WhoIs details of each of these websites reveal that DNR has masked the relevant particulars of each of the registrants, including their address and other contact details.
37.13 Defendant No. 10 is the DNR of the website ‘www.redporn.video.com’, which is unauthorizedly using Plaintiff’s name in relation to pornographic content hosted by it. The WhoIs details of this website reveals that the DNR has masked the relevant details of the registrant such as the address and other contact details. The Plaintiff addressed a legal notice to the grievance officer of the DNR, who responded that this legal issue could not be resolved by them.
37.14 Defendant No. 11, operates and maintains a website accessible at ‘www.nextprint.in’ which unauthorizedly sells T-shirts, in the Plaintiff’s name which bear the Plaintiff’s name and /or image/photograph displayed in a prominent manner.
37.15 Defendant No. 12 operates and maintains a website accessible at ‘www.fullyfilmy.in’ which unauthorizedly sells T-shirts, in the Plaintiff’s name, that bear the Plaintiff’s name and/or image/photograph displayed in a prominent manner.
37.16 Defendant No. 13 is the registrant of Defendant Nos. 1 to 3 websites as per the WhoIs details. Further inquiries on the internet reflected that Defendant No. 13 is in the business of providing proxy registration services.
37.17 Defendant No. 14 is the DNR of Defendant Nos. 1 to 3 websites.
37.18 Defendant No. 15 is the DNR of Defendant No. 5 website and is impleaded through its grievance officer.
37.19 Defendant No. 16, is the DNR of Defendant Nos. 4 and 6 websites, and is impleaded through its grievance officer.
37.20 Defendant No. 17 is a proforma Defendant, who is impleaded through its Grievance Officer. The Plaintiff addressed a communication to Defendant No. 17 in order to address the violation of the Plaintiff’s rights, however, Defendant No. 17 has refused to take action against the same.
37.21 Defendant Nos. 18 and 19 are the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Telecommunication, Government of India, respectively.
37.22 The Plaintiff has also impleaded unknown entities as Defendant No.20, that are referred to as ‘John Doe’ and/or ‘Ashok Kumar’, as it is apprehended that such unknown Defendants are uploading and/or publishing infringing material on digital platforms such as internet websites as well as different social media platforms.
37.23 Such unauthorized violations of Plaintiff’s personality/publicity rights, Plaintiff’s moral rights, and passing off by the Defendants are causing grave prejudice to the Plaintiff. The illegal and infringing content is easily and freely available and accessible across India.
37.24 In Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi, (2022) 6 HCC (Del) 641, this Court granted the relief of ad-interim ex-parte injunction to the plaintiff therein, who was aggrieved by the unauthorized use of his celebrity status by the defendants therein, for the promotion of their goods and services. Similarly, in Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. Aishwaryaworld.com & Ors., vide order dated 09.09.2025 in CS(COMM) 956/2025, this Court had granted injunction from misusing the name, image, likeness and diluting public persona of the plaintiff therein through the use of technology including Artificial Intelligence, and protecting the dignity, reputation, goodwill and unauthorized commercial exploitation of the Personality Rights of the plaintiff.”
Most significantly and so also most forthrightly, the Bench encapsulates in para 38 what constitutes the cornerstone of this notable judgment postulating precisely that, “The exploitation of one’s personality rights puts at risk not only their economic interests but also their right to live with dignity, potentially causing immeasurable harm to their reputation and goodwill as the adoption of the attributes such as name, image, likeness unauthorizedly will inevitably cause confusion in the minds of the members of the public regarding association with/endorsement by the Plaintiff.”
Equally significant is that the Bench then hastens to add in para 39 underscoring that, “Considering the pleadings, documents and submissions made by the learned Counsel for the Plaintiff, it is prima facie clear that the attributes of the Plaintiff’s persona, including his name and images, are being misused by Defendant Nos. 1 to 13 and 20, without any authorization from the Plaintiff.”
Most rationally, the Bench very rightly points out in para 40 holding that, “The Plaintiff is a celebrated personality in the entertainment industry and the depiction of the Plaintiff in settings that are misleading, derogatory and inappropriate will inevitably have the effect of diluting the goodwill and reputation associated with the Plaintiff.”
It is worth noting that the Bench notes in para 41 directing that, “Accordingly, till the next date of hearing, it is directed that:
i. Defendants Nos. 1 to 13 and 20, their principal officers, servants, agents, affiliates, subsidiaries, distributors and all others acting for and on their behalf are restrained from violating the Plaintiff’s Personality Rights and/or Plaintiff’s Moral Rights and/or Passing Off their goods and/or services as those emanating from or being endorsed by the Plaintiff by utilizing and/or in any manner directly and/or indirectly, using or exploiting or misappropriating the Plaintiff’s (i) name ‘Akkineni Nagarjuna’ and ‘Nagarjuna’; (ii) image and likeness; (iii) other attributes of his persona which are exclusively identifiable with him; and (iv) creating, sharing, disseminating any product (including clothes) and/or content (including audio-visual content, images, videos, etc.) for any commercial and/or personal gain and/or otherwise by exploiting them in any manner whatsoever without the Plaintiff’s consent and/or authorization, through the use of any technology including, but not limited to Artificial Intelligence, Generative Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deepfakes, Face Morphing, on any medium and format, that results in the dilution of the Plaintiff’s public persona.
ii. Defendant Nos. 1 to 10 shall take down, remove, disable and block the URLs identified in Document A to this Application, as may be applicable to each of the said Defendants within 72 hours from the receipt of the Notice.
iii. Defendant Nos. 11 and 12 shall remove, disable, take down and block all the URLs as identified in Paragraph No. 33(b) of this Application within 72 hours from the receipt of the Notice and shall further file in a sealed cover/password protected document, all the Basic Subscriber Information, including the names, email address, contact number, IP logs and registration details of the owners, operators and sellers of goods and/or services through the URLs as identified in Paragraph No. 33(b) of this Application, within two weeks from the receipt of the Notice.
iv. Defendant Nos. 14 to 16 shall file in a sealed cover/password protected document, all the Basic Subscriber Information, including the names, email address, contact number, IP logs and registration details of the owners, operators of the Domain Names as under, within two weeks from the receipt of the Notice:
Defendant Nos. Domain Name
Defendant No. 14 www.bfxxx.org www.tubewap.xyzww.xxxxpornvideo.com
Defendant No. 15 www.alldesiporn.com
Defendant No. 16
www.xxxv.mobi www.xomass.com
v. Defendant No. 17 shall remove, disable, take down and block all the URLs as identified in Paragraph Nos. 33(c) and 33(d) of this Application within 72 hours from the receipt of the Notice and shall further file in a sealed cover/password protected document, all the Basic Subscriber Information, including the names, email address, contact number, IP logs and registration details of the owners, operators and sellers of goods and/or services through the URLs as identified in Paragraph Nos. 33(c) and 33(d) of this Application, within two weeks from the receipt of the Notice.
vi. Defendant Nos. 18 and 19, shall issue necessary directions to block and disable all the URLs, as identified in Document A of this Application, within 7 days from the receipt of the Notice.”
It would be instructive to note that the Bench then directs and holds in para 42 that, “Let the Reply to the present Application be filed within four weeks after service of Notice. Rejoinder thereto, if any, be filed before the next date of hearing.”
It also merits noting that the Bench notes in para 43 holding that, “The compliance of Order XXXIX Rule 3 of the CPC be done within two weeks.”
Finally, the Bench then concludes by aptly holding in para 44 that, “List before this Court on 23.01.2026.”
Sanjeev Sirohi