Right To Personality And Its Emergence In India

Right to Personality has recently been in the news as the aspect of the case is concerned with constitutional law and publicity rights. In the case of Shivaji Gaikwad v. Varsha Production, the Madras High court was dealing with a case that was filed by the reputed Indian actor Mr. Rajinikanth and it was observed that ‘although "Personality Rights" is not defined in any Indian statute.’ However, Indian courts have recognized it in a few rulings.In Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewelers, the Delhi High Court in 2012 defined a ‘celebrity’. The law observed that ‘The right to control the commercial use of human identity is the right to publicity" and defined a “famous or well-known person” as, ‘a person who is famous or a well-known person and is merely a person that many people talk about or are aware of.’ In the present case, Defendant unlawfully exploited the photograph of Indian actor Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and his wife, Ms. Jaya Bachchan, taken specifically for use in endorsing Plaintiff's jewelry product for his own jewelry product. The High Court established the following based on a few foreign cases, the majority of which showed that foreign courts did not extend publicity rights to non-living entities: “The right of publicity has evolved from the right of privacy and can inhere only in an individual or in any indicia of an individual's personality like his name, personality trait, signature, voice, etc. This case demonstrates that, while involving a well-known public figure and a famous personality, the lawsuit would fall short under the standard of "publicity rights" unless unfair enrichment of a celebrity's personality rights is established.