Kriti Sanon seeks personality rights protection in Delhi High Court

Kriti Sanon has gone to the Delhi High Court to protect her personality rights. The judge wants a closer look at the law before ruling, and the plea comes back to court on October 29.

At Friday's hearing, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav asked her counsel, advocate Pravin Anand, to file past judgments, research papers and his own view of where personality rights stand today. "Please give a compilation," the judge told him. The court said it would study that material before passing a fuller order.

Two questions stood out for the bench. Which parts of a person's identity can the law actually shield? And is the High Court's Intellectual Property Division the right place to hear such disputes? Anand argued that Kriti's petition raises no issue of jurisdiction. In his view, protection can cover a person's name, voice, face, image, photographs and videos, and he pointed to stars' identities being used for commercial gain without their consent. He said the compilation would be filed later the same day.

Pleas like this now reach the Delhi High Court more and more often, the bench observed. Actor Kangana Ranaut and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor are among the public figures who have asked it for similar protection.

Tollywood has been busy in the same courtroom. Vijay Deverakonda, Pawan Kalyan, Allu Arjun, Nagarjuna and Naga Chaitanya have all gone to the court over misuse of their identities, reports say.