New Delhi, 12 December (H.S.): The Delhi High Court on Friday directed social media intermediaries to take action within seven days on a petition filed by former cricketer and commentator Sunil Gavaskar, seeking protection of his personality rights.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora asked Gavaskar’s legal team to place their grievances before the respective social media companies. The court further instructed the platforms to treat Gavaskar’s petition as a formal complaint under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and act upon it within a week.

Gavaskar had approached the high court on Thursday to stop the unauthorised use of his name, image, persona, and likeness by social media pages and e-commerce platforms.

Several prominent personalities have previously sought similar protection from courts, including Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn, filmmaker Karan Johar, singer Kumar Sanu, Telugu actors Jr NTR and Akkineni Nagarjuna, spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, and podcaster Raj Shamani. Gavaskar is the first cricketer to file such a plea.

On December 11, the Delhi High Court heard Salman Khan’s petition and ordered social media intermediaries to act within three days. Khan had cited misuse of his name, image and voice on various platforms. His counsel, senior advocate Sandeep Sethi, argued that the actor’s personality was being exploited without permission.

Earlier, on November 27, the court issued an interim order barring unauthorised use of Ajay Devgn’s photographs and personality traits. It also directed the removal of content generated using artificial intelligence (AI) and deepfake technologies.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar