From Screen to Courtroom: The Phenomenon of John Doe Orders in The Evolution of Personality Rights in India

Modern technology and globalization have made people interlinked and with the flexibilities of the media, public and personal image almost overlap in celebrities. The phenomenal popularity of celebrities and the widespread presence of social networks, advertising, and the Internet have made the problem of personality rights a burning issue in current legal debates. In its simplest form, personality rights or the right to publicity seek to protect identity of a person, which includes, name, image, voice, and other attributes. Personality rights refer to the legal rights that guarantee personal ownership and control of a persona as a product or image that is to be sold, marketed or commoditized especially against organizations or individuals who wish to capture or gain an improper control and access to the individual, persona or image of the person or personality in marketing their products among persons of similar personality or like-minded peoples.

Legal Basis of Personality Rights

In the Indian legal context, personality rights still constitute a relatively young line of legal development. Unlike the legal rights in personality, which legalizes the freedom of an individual to protect his image, identity or resemblance from being used by others commercially without his consent to be found in any codified statute, their protection has however been discerned through case laws and the extension of other legal principles including tort and intellectual property legal principles.

Constitution of India

One of the basic legal propositions regarding personality rights in India emanates from the right to privacy which has been held by the Supreme Court of India as part of the right to life and personal liberty embodied in article 21 of the Constitution. As in most of the cases like K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), Hon’ble Supreme Court of India reiterated that celebrities are also protected under the right to privacy particularly the part of one’s identity which he or she wants to keep secret.

Copyright Act, 1957

The provision of the personality rights depending on performers can also be protected under the Copyright Act, 1957. The Act mainly relates to the protection of original works of authorship although it contains provisions dealing with performers’ rights as well as those of actors, musicians, singers and dancers.

• Moral Rights: Section 57 of the Copyright Act provides for moral rights for authors and performers. Moral rights give authors control of their work and to prevent any alteration of work that is prejudicial to their reputation.
• Rights of Performers: Sections 38, 38A and 38B of the Act provides provisions on performer’s rights as follows;
• Right of Attribution (Right to be credited): This will entitle performers to be acknowledged as the author of performances to which they have contributed.
• Right of Integrity (Right to Restrain Misuse): This right enables performers to prevent further use of one’s identity or performance which may be prejudicial to their image.

Trademarks Act, 1999

Section 11 of the Trademark Act, 1999 enables an individual to claim the protection of personal identity especially where the person is famous for being famous such as celebrities. While the Act deals primarily with the protection of trade names, logos, and symbols, its provisions have been adapted to safeguard personality rights, specifically through:

• Section 14: This section adds the proviso that the name be not registrable as a trademark if it is the name of a living person or a deceased person within the past twenty years, without the consent of such person or his heirs.
• Section 2(m): The definition of a trademark in this section also incorporates ‘names’ this means that celebrities are free to trademark their names. This registration keeps off any other person from using the name which is an identification of the public figure for business and financial gains.
• Judicial Precedents: Changing Nature of Personality Rights in Jurisprudence

Judicial decisions have a significant role to perform in the development of personality right law in Indian context. Although statutory law has fallen short to provide these right expressly, the Indian common law courts have been able to fashion them through judicial interpretation and application of principles of trademark passing off and defamation.

• Passing Off: This is a legal provision that arises when persona of an individual is adopted in confusing the public usually for a vices purpose say for moneymaking purposes.
• Right to Publicity: Indian courts have in several cases accepted the right of identity personality commercial exploitation known as the right to publicity. Thus in cases like D.M. Entertainment, the judgement made it quite clear starting with the principle that no person has the authority to use the name and likeness of another for economic gain.
• Recent Developments: Using the Jackie Shroff case, the Delhi High Court in its perception continued the unveiling of personality rights by passing John Doe order prohibiting the defendant from using the actor’s name, image, or voice, and voice across e-commerce websites, social media platforms, among others.

Application and concept of John Doe alias Ashok Kumar orders

In Indian jurisprudence, a John Doe order (or otherwise known as an Ashok Kumar order) refer to a very special form of relief that exists in Indian legal system. However, unlike any conventional legal suits where the defendant is well known, an order in John Doe form is invoked if the identity of the infringing party or parties is not well discerned or if it is rather complex to determine all the wrong doers of a given unlawful act. A John Doe order is an ex parte order; this is an order the court gives to the unknown defendants who are undertaking several activities that the law does not allow or ordering them to do something they are prohibited from doing. This order is often used in a situation when a number of individuals infringed a copyright, or when an unauthorized use is perpetrated and the individual responsible for their act cannot be identified at the time an action is brought.

Pioneering case of John Doe order on Personality Rights: The case of Amitabh Bachchan

The Delhi High Court judgement in Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi and Ors. (2022) is a landmark judgement for the extension of legal rights of personality in India. This was the first time that the Court had allowed for a John Doe (Ashok Kumar) order to protect the personality rights of one of Bollywood’s most famous stars, Amitabh Bachchan, from being used to commercial benefit without his consent. This significant judgement forms a significant decision that defines the legal personality rights within India while providing sufficient response to the constantly increasing fraudulent and commercial utilisation of the personalities for cheater and fake individuals especially in the 21st century world.

In this particular case, Amitabh Bachchan as a big movie star of India’s cinema industry, pursued legal action against nine clear defendants for identity theft and impersonation for the purpose of fraudulent and unlawful economic gain. Bachchan stated that these defendants were using name, voice, photographs of him, as well as his persona to mislead the public and make use of him to market their businesses or products. Among the most notorious with regard to this exploitative use of celebrity image was the KBC Lottery Scam, the fraudsters to deceive the public deployed images and voice of Bachchan to portray the illusion that he was endorsing the Lottery scam. This exploitation of his persona was not only was an infringement of his publicity rights but also dangerous to his image since the public was being led to believe that he was partner to these dishonorable deeds.

Given the gravity of the subject and the prima facie case of reputational damage to Amitabh Bachchan, the Delhi High Court under Justice Navin Chawla granted an ad-interim ex-parte injunction in favour of the plaintiff. This ruling prohibited the named defendants, and those unknown individuals referred to as John Doe defendants from continued violation of Bachchan’s personality rights for self or business exploitation. The Court found that Bachchan had a prima facie case made out and that the balance of convenience favoured Bachchan. If the defendants are allowed to continue with these activities, grave irreparable injury would be inflicted to the plaintiff by eradicating his rights as provided for in the laws of the land. The Court also noted that on the part of the defendants, the use of his persona, was not inadvertent, but rather was being done with a primary design to benefit from his celebrity status for fraudulent and commercial gains.

John Doe Order in AI Era-The Vishnu Manchu Case

Though the aspect that the Delhi High Court recently provided a John Doe order to protect the personality of an Indian actor, producer Vishnu Manchu. The recent judgement is a significant addition to the development of the legal protection of personality rights in India. This case acknowledges the niche that is currently offered by the law to apply for damages due to the unauthorized use of the persona especially in the modern world where misuse is likely through technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and deep-fake technology. Vishnu Manchu, filed before the Delhi High Court to seek protection of name, voice, image, likeness and other aspects of persona owing to his personality as an actor. The actor also cited instances where unauthorized pictures of him were doctored alongside animals. The actor said that excerpt from his interviews, were being published on social media with wrong portrayals, with no consent or authorization from him being aware of the fact that a any adverse impact on Vishnu Manchu personality cannot be compensated the Delhi High Court promptly issued the John Doe Order to prevent any person or company to use or exploit this personality without its consent.

The Supreme Court of India in the Vishnu Manchu affair has brought new history in the recognition of the personality rights. It not only protects the actor from having other people using his/her performer identification but also fosters a good setting for future similar actor conditions they might be facing. The activities of the Court, its directives to intermediaries, and focus on accountability and follow-up guarantee that personality rights protection is not a mere legal concept but an enforceable action in today’s world, AI, deep-fake technology and photo manipulation complicate the protection of identities belonging to public figures.

Conclusion

The technological advancement in the last two decades complemented by the advancement in Artificial Intelligence AI has considerably transformed the personality rights across the globe especially in India. The cases involving John Doe orders – legal patents used as shields against the unauthorized appropriation of a persona are a new tradition in the Indian juridical outlook, where anonymity and personality are closer than they have ever been to mere facades of commercial trade. Continuing controversies over personalities such as Amitabh Bachchan and Vishnu Manchu show the need for the said legislations in protecting personalities’ right to their names, images, voices, and likenesses in an age where the digital platforms’ evils are rife.

Therefore, the John Doe orders are a very significant continuing progression in the development of personality rights as a part of Indian law. The following legal remedies are helpful to the shame-public figures who are faced with the exploitation of the persona to avoid the situation, where persona is used to make profits without the subject’s permission. The John Doe order has proved to be a robust mechanism in this regard; the courts can move for an injunction against Doe infringers especially where impersonation of a personality’s identity is widespread online. As digital technologies continue to evolve, these legal protections will only continue to grow in importance, safeguarding the personal and professional reputations of individuals in a world, where their identity can be misappropriated by just a click of a button.