Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has filed a suit in the Delhi High Court against the world at large, seeking protection of his name, image, voice, and personality attributes. Eminent lawyer Harish Salve appeared for the veteran actor.
In the order, Justice Navin Chawla said, “It cannot be disputed that Amitabh Bachchan is a popular personality and is also represented in many advertisements. He is aggrieved by the defendants who were using his personality attributed to promote their own businesses, goods and services, without his permission.”
The court also directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and telecom service providers, to remove flagged content. “I am just giving a flavour of what is going on. Someone is making t-shirts and started putting his face on them. Someone is selling his poster. Someone has gone and registered a domain name, amitabhbachchan.com. This is why we have come,” senior Advocate Harish Salve, who appeared for Mr Bachchan, had argued.
“The actor is likely to suffer irreparable loss and harm due to such activities. It can also bring disrepute to him. Hence, keeping all these things in view, an interim order has been passed,” the judge further noted.
The suit stated that Bachchan’s name, image and voice were being used by mobile application developers to conduct lotteries by illegally associating with Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC). The megastar has also sought a restraining order against book publishers, T-shirt vendors, and various other businesses.