Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi & Ors.

Amitabh Bachchan is one of India's best-known film actors and the long-time host of the television quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC). By 2022 his name, face and voice were being widely used in online scams and unlicensed merchandise. Fraudsters circulated WhatsApp messages carrying his photograph that promised prizes in fake 'KBC lottery' lucky draws, and ran so-called 'Amitabh Bachchan video call' schemes. According to his counsel, when a victim called, the actor's photograph appeared, and recordings impersonating his voice were used to make the scam convincing.²

Other misuse was more conventional. Websites and mobile apps used his photographs. Quiz books were sold on e-commerce platforms with his image, and t-shirts and wall posters bore his likeness. The domain names amitabhbachchan.com and amitabhbachchan.in were registered by third parties.²

In November 2022 Bachchan filed a commercial suit in the Delhi High Court against those defendants and unknown 'John Doe' persons. He sought a permanent injunction against infringement of his personality rights, takedown of infringing websites and links, blocking of phone numbers used in the scams, and damages of ₹2,00,01,000.²

Senior Advocate Harish Salve, with Pravin Anand and others, appeared for the actor before Justice Navin Chawla. The defendants were not represented.¹² After disposing of procedural applications, including exemption from pre-institution mediation under Section 12-A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, the court registered the suit, issued summons and took up the injunction application.¹

The court recorded that the plaintiff alleged violation of his 'publicity rights as a celebrity', which the High Court had recognised in Titan Industries Ltd. v. M/s Ramkumar Jewellers (2012). The court held that the plaintiff, 'a well-known personality', had made out a good prima facie case. It found that the defendants appeared to be using his celebrity status to promote their own activities without authorisation, and that the balance of convenience lay in his favour. It granted an ad interim ex parte injunction in terms of the reliefs sought in the application and issued directions to the relevant statutory authorities and telecom service providers.¹

As reported, the relief:²³

• restrained the defendants from infringing the actor's personality rights by misusing his name (including 'Amitabh Bachchan', 'Bachchan', 'Big B' and 'AB'), voice, image or any other attribute identifiable with him, for commercial or personal gain;
• directed the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to have internet service providers remove infringing links and websites;
• directed telecom service providers to block phone numbers used to circulate the fraudulent messages; and
• directed the domain registrars to take down the amitabhbachchan.com and amitabhbachchan.in websites.

The order is brief. Its legal reasoning consists of recognising 'publicity rights' as a celebrity, citing Titan Industries, and making the standard interim-injunction findings of prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable harm.¹ Commentators criticised this brevity. A 2023 SpicyIP analysis called the order 'cursory'. It said the order relied on Titan Industries to affirm that personality rights could be protected without identifying any statutory or common-law basis for them, and argued that Indian personality-rights law was being built on unreasoned interim orders.⁴ The authors traced the same problem through Titan Industries, DM Entertainment v. Baby Gift House (2010), and Gautam Gambhir v. D.A.P & Co. (2017), where the court refused relief because no confusion or commercial misappropriation was shown. They also asked whether personality rights rest on privacy, passing off or a separate publicity right.⁴

Those questions mattered because the remedy was so broad. A John Doe injunction against anyone misusing a celebrity's 'name, voice, image or any other attribute' reaches unknown future infringers and requires platforms and the government to act. Later orders tried to supply firmer foundations. In Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India (2023), for example, the court relied on the right to privacy and dignity under Article 21 (following R. Rajagopal), passing off, dilution and tarnishment.

The 2022 order came just before consumer generative AI spread widely, but it addressed the main harm that AI tools later amplified: impersonating a famous person's face and voice to deceive the public. The KBC lottery scams used the actor's photograph and imitated voice recordings, a low-technology form of the voice-cloning and deepfake frauds that followed.² By expressly protecting the actor's voice, the order anticipated later disputes over synthetic speech. It also directed telecom providers and MeitY and DoT to act, combining a private-law injunction with state blocking powers.

The order became the model for the 'omnibus' personality-rights injunction in the Delhi High Court. That model includes a broad restraint on use of all identifiable attributes, John Doe relief against unknown persons, takedown and blocking directions to intermediaries and the government, and transfer or suspension of domain names. Ten months later, the Anil Kapoor order applied the same structure while expressly naming artificial intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes and face-morphing as means of infringement. Many celebrity suits since 2024 have followed the same pattern.

After the interim order, the suit moved through pleadings before the Joint Registrar. In February 2023 Justice Sanjeev Narula condoned a short delay in the plaintiff's replication to one defendant's written statement. He allowed the plaintiff to place on record a screenshot of January 2023 showing the impugned book still on sale on an e-commerce platform.⁵ In late 2023 one defendant applied under Order I Rule 10 CPC to be deleted from the suit, and pleadings concerning several defendants continued into 2024.⁶

The suit did not reach trial. Hearings listed in 2026 were adjourned, including on 9 April 2026 at the plaintiff's request and on 16 September 2026 because the judge was on leave.¹⁰¹¹

On 9 October 2026 Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav recorded that settlement talks between the actor and some defendants had progressed but that formalities were incomplete, and gave time to execute a settlement. He also directed that if the settlement fails or is incomplete, and the plaintiff wishes to pursue any claim, he 'shall remain personally present' on the next date. This would enable the court to exercise its powers to examine him and manage the evidence.⁷⁸⁹ The matter is listed on 16 November 2026. As of 14 October 2026, the ex parte injunction of 25 November 2022 continues in force.