Imagine scrolling through Instagram in 2025 and seeing: Aishwarya Rai endorsing a product she’s never touched, or a deepfake of a celebrity making controversial statements or a film poster with “Karan Johar” in the title, but he’s not involved.

“How would that fan feel? Confused? Misled? Amused at first, but then worried?”

Because when a doll looks like Daler Mehndi, a t-shirt sells Abhishek Bachchan’s face, someone coins Anil Kapoor’s “Jhakaas,” or AI recreates Arijit Singh’s voice, it isn’t just pop culture anymore, it becomes law. Indian celebrities are increasingly turned to courts to claim ownership over their name, image, voice, and persona.

Personality rights that once an obscure legal concept have become a frontline issue in a digital India powered by AI, deepfakes, and hyperconnected social media.

What exactly are personality rights?

Often referred to as Publicity rights, they protect an individual’s name, image, voice, reputation, and any other distinctive personality trait from being exploited or misused through the use of AI or any such global platform.

Any well-known celebrity, like an actor, singer, sportsperson, influencer, performers etc., who largely lives in the public domain may claim rights over their personality if seen to be misused.

The real question is, “Can the law stop your identity from being digitally hijacked?” What happens when your name, face, or voice ends up selling products you’ve never heard of?

In India, there is no standalone statute on personality rights. Instead, the law has evolved through judicial decisions drawing from privacy under Article 21, misappropriation under tort law, and trademark/passing off principles under intellectual property law.

• Privacy protects autonomy and dignity: The country saw a real jurisprudential shift, which transitioned the right to privacy to the status of a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution with the Supreme Court’s landmark decision of K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) V.UOI [(2017) 10 SCC 1]. Post this landmark decision, control over one’s name, image, likeness, and personal attributes is no longer seen as a mere commercial interest of celebrities, but as an extension of personal autonomy and human dignity. In effect, the Court recognised that an individual’s identity is not public property but is constitutionally protected.
• Publicity/misappropriation: The tort of misappropriationfocuses directly on the commercial use of identity itself. It addresses situations where a person’s name, image, voice, or likeness is used as a commercial asset without consent. Taken together, these doctrines illustrate how Indian courts are developing personality rights as a hybrid form of protection, one that safeguards individual dignity and autonomy.
• Trademark/passing off the reputation connected with a name, face, or persona. They come into play when someone uses a person’s identity in a way that misleads the public into thinking there is an endorsement, association, or unfairly rides on or harms that person’s reputation. Copyright and performers’ rights protect the content a person creates or performs. They are triggered when a song, film, performance, or other creative work is copied, modified, or commercially exploited without permission.

The 2025 Shift: Indian Courts and the New Identity Jurisprudence

While these legal provisions explain and deal with the fundamentals of personality rights, the actual boundaries are being carved out in the courtrooms, notably the Bombay and Delhi High Courts. In recent years, Indian courts have witnessed an unprecedented rise in cases involving personality rights, wherein celebrities tend to to stop unauthorized digital and AI-based misuse of their identity. These cases are shaping the judicial realm of India to respond to identity theft in this modern age of artificial intelligence.

• Amitabh Bachchan (Amitabh Bachchan V. Rajat Nagi) (2022 SCC OnLine Del 4110), The Delhi High Court restrained scam websites from using his name, image, and voice, signalling that a celebrity’s persona is a protectable asset that cannot be commercially exploited without consent. This case expanded the scope of personality rights, ensuring that a celebrity’s name, voice, and likeness cannot be exploited for commercial gain without explicit consent.
• Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. Aishwaryaworld.com & Ors.) (2025 SCC OnLine Del 5943) Her petition addressed the unauthorised creation and circulation of deepfakes and AI-generated content using her image and initials “ARB.” The High Court recognised her right to be protected from misuse, underlining that personal identity is more important than publicity, as it is linked to dignity, trust, and emotional harm.
• Karan Johar (Karan Johar v. Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors.) (2025 SCC OnLine Del 6108) isn’t immune to the risks of the digital era; his recent legal battle to protect the ‘KJo’ persona highlights the growing necessity for celebrities to aggressively defend their personality rights against unauthorized use. For filmmaker Karan Johar, his name itself had become a brand, one vulnerable to digital exploitation. His legal plea sought protection from AI tools and content creators misusing or morphing his face and voice to mimic the “KJo” identity. The Court agreed, reinforcing that modern personality rights must expand with technology.
• Asha Bhosle’s case (Asha Bhosle v. Mayc Inc) (2025 SCC OnLine Bom 3485), which brought new depth to the idea of “identity,” arguing that a person’s voice is as distinctive as their face. Her legal victory against AI voice cloning and unauthorised commercial use marked a turning point. The Bombay High Court’s ruling confirms that your voice is as much your property as your face, marking a major shift in how the law protects creators from digital cloning.
• Nagarjuna Akkineni’s case (Akkineni Nagarjuna v. Bfxxx.org) (2025 SCC OnLine Del 6331) emphasized that the protection of identity is not confined to Hindi cinema or global figures. The Court’s order restraining the misuse of his name, image, and videos affirmed that reputation and commercial integrity matter at every level of fame.

In a nutshell, these cases make one thing clear: fame does not turn a person into public property. As courts are beginning to recognize, fame does not mean giving up control over who you are. Consent, above all, is non-negotiable.

When Technology Outpaces the Law

Despite judicial innovation, India still continues to protect personality rights through scattered legal tools rather than a single, dedicated law. These include injunctions under intellectual property law, privacy claims under Article 21, and certain tort remedies. However, none of these were designed to deal with challenges like voice cloning, deepfakes, and digital impersonation. The law is clearly struggling to keep pace with technology.

A deepfake can be created and circulated within seconds. It can mislead audiences, misuse identity, and even generate profits long before a person becomes aware of what has happened, let alone seeks a legal remedy. Court orders, though important, function more like a cure than a preventive measure. They step in after the damage has already been done. This growing gap between technological speed and legal response needs urgent attention. As these tools become cheaper and more accessible, identity misuse will no longer remain a celebrity issue; it will increasingly become an everyday societal concern. The reputational and emotional injury caused is often something no injunction can fully undo.

Importantly, this is no longer a celebrity-only concern. Teachers, influencers, gamers, podcasters, and private citizens can all have their voices cloned or faces manipulated without consent. As identity becomes data, the risks become universal.

Personality rights, therefore, are no longer just about fame or endorsements. They are about autonomy in a digital world, the right to decide how one is seen, heard, and represented. This is not only an intellectual property issue; it is, at its core, a human one.

Personality Rights vs Free Speech: The Constitutional Conundrum

As we expand these rights, we must ask: How far is too far?

With the rise of personality rights, an equally important concern also arises as to the protection of free speech and creative freedom. Not every use of a public figure’s identity is exploitative. Cinema, journalism, parody, satires, fan art, and social commentary often rely on well-known personalities as they are constantly in the public domain.

Over- protection should not turn personality rights into a blunt instrument of censorship rather than a remedy against actual harm caused. Indian courts have consistently tried to strike this balance by protecting an artist’s personal right while leaving space for legitimate criticism, public interest, and artistic expression. The real predicament is when a deepfake parody starts looking like a real endorsement, or a voice clone circulates an authentic voice. This leaves the audience in a tricky situation where they can no longer differentiate art from impersonation.

A future legal framework would require coexisting safeguards for:

• consent,
• autonomy,
• artistic freedom, and
• public interest

rather than privileging one at the expense of the other.

Conclusion: Identity in the Age of AI

The personality rights explosion in 2025 can be seen as a new wave of awareness that technology can now replicate the most personal parts of a human being. Faces can be manufactured; voices can be duplicated, and reputations can be rewritten. The celebrities who stood up against it forced the legal system to recognize identity as a vulnerable commodity that can be misused and exploited.

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, the law must take some learn to take some precautions, not merely respond to it. In a world where everything can be copied, the right to remain your authentic self may become one of the most crucial rights of all.

Authored by: Ms. Riya Bhatwal, NLU Mumbai