Delhi High Court: In a suit filed for seeking permanent injunction restraining infringement of personality and publicity rights of Devi Prasad Shetty, a renowned cardiac surgeon (‘Plaintiff 1’), a Single Judge Bench of Mini Pushkarna, J., stated that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a prima facie case for the grant of injunction and in case, no ex parte ad interim injunction was granted, the plaintiffs would suffer an irreparable loss. Further, balance of convenience also lies in plaintiff’s favour, and against the defendants.
Thus, till the next date of hearing, the Court restrained Defendants 1-8 and 13, or anyone acting for and on their behalf from misusing, misappropriating or exploiting the name, likeness, image, videos, or any other aspects of Plaintiff 1’s persona, which were solely and exclusively associated and identified with him for any commercial and/or personal gain, in any manner, without his express written authorization.
Background
Plaintiff 1 was a renowned cardiac surgeon, philanthropist and chairman of Plaintiff 2, Narayana Hrudayalaya Ltd., a public company incorporated in the year 2000. It was submitted that the present suit was instituted against several known and unknown defendants seeking to restrain them from misusing and exploiting any personality and publicity rights of Plaintiff 1; infringing the registered trade marks ‘NARAYANA HEALTH’, ‘NARAYANA HRUDAYALAYA’, 
, of Plaintiff 2, and from claiming any association and/or connection with the plaintiffs.
Owing to the significant contributions of Plaintiff 1 to the field of affordable healthcare, he had been awarded several awards, accolades and recognition. Plaintiff 1 also holds a US Patent registered as inventor- “System and Method for Facilitating Delivery of Patient-Care”. In 2000, Plaintiff 1 founded College of Nursing, Asia Heart Foundation along with Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, multi-super-speciality hospital in Kolkata.
Owing his remarkable achievements, Plaintiff 1 became a well-known personality not only in India, but across the world. Plaintiff 1 had regularly appeared in various interviews and talk shows, delivered lectures and featured in several news articles. An episode of a Netflix’s documentary series, also featured Plaintiff 1 showing his treatment of patients prioritizing low-cost and affordable healthcare.
Plaintiff 2 adopted the mark ‘Narayana Hrudayalaya’ with its incorporation in 2000 and the mark ‘Narayana Health’ in April 2001. Over the years the said plaintiff also adopted various device marks, including, but not limited to 
, etc. By the virtue of continuous and uninterrupted user, widespread promotion and exceptional healthcare services, the said marks have acquired formidable goodwill and reputation.
Defendants 1 and 2 were unidentifiable third parties operating Facebook pages, viz. Medicine Me and QDD Milano Nightlife TV respectively, and misusing the name/likeness/ photos/videos of Plaintiff 1, by creating and sharing fake and misleading videos on the said social media platform. A bare perusal of the said videos/articles/pages would show that the same was created/uploaded/circulated by the defendants for the sole purpose of deriving illicit commercial gains.
It was submitted that the impugned content utilizing Plaintiff 1’s personality traits, pose a significant threat to the unsuspecting members of public who might be misled into purchasing the purported health products promoted/ marketed using Plaintiff 1’s persona. Further, any adverse consequences caused by the virtue of such impugned content, would also result in irreparable harm to the hard-earned goodwill of the plaintiffs.
It was further submitted that the mala fide intent of Defendants 1-8 and 13 to deceive public, was evident not only from the unauthorised use of Plaintiff 1’s image, videos and likeness, but also from the fact that Plaintiff 1’s prior videos were deliberately distorted and doctored into such infringing content to suggest an association between Plaintiff 1 and the said defendants.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court stated that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a prima facie case for the grant of injunction and in case, no ex parte ad interim injunction was granted, the plaintiffs would suffer an irreparable loss. Further, balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiffs, and against the defendants.
Thus, till the next date of hearing, the Court restrained Defendants 1-8 and 13, or anyone acting for and on their behalf from misusing, misappropriating or exploiting the name, likeness, image, videos, or any other aspects of Plaintiff 1’s persona, which were solely and exclusively associated and identified with him for any commercial and/or personal gain, in any manner, without his express written authorization, including, through the use of any technology such as Artificial Intelligence, deep fake technology in any medium, resulting in infringement/passing off of personality and publicity rights of Plaintiff 1.
The Court restrained Defendants 1-8 and 13, or anyone acting for and, on their behalf from infringing the registered trade marks of Plaintiff 2 such as 
.
The Court also directed Defendant 9 to block/take down the Facebook page contents of Defendants 1 and 3 and disclose their complete details such as name, address, email, phone numbers, etc., available with it, in accordance with law. Similarly, the Court directed Google LLC to block/ take down the impugned content/channel of Defendants 4-8 from YouTube and disclose their complete details available with it. The Court also directed Defendants 11 and 12 to issue necessary notifications/directions to all telecom and internet service providers to block/suspend/the websites, violating the plaintiffs’ rights.
The Court stated that in case, the plaintiffs during the pendency of the suit discovered any more false, fake and infringing videos not originating from or associated with the plaintiffs, they should be at liberty to approach Defendants 9 and 10, requesting them to block/take down any such post/video/text or any material, published on its platforms. In case, Defendants 9 and 10 raised any doubt, the plaintiff should be at liberty to approach this Court, for appropriate orders.
The matter would next be listed on 15-04-2025.
[Devi Prasad Shetty v. Medicine Me, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 8565, decided on 28-11-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiffs: Saikrishna Rajagopal with Shilpa Gupta, Deepika Pokharia and Naman Tandon, Advocates.
For the Defendants: Abhishek Kumar, Advocate; Ekta Sharma with Pragya Jain and Surabhi Katare, Advocates.
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