Delhi HC orders Meta, X to remove posts misusing Sunil Gavaskar's identity

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora ordered that Meta users remove the infringing URLs within 72 hours

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed Meta, X Corp and various e-commerce platforms to remove social media posts wrongly attributing quotes to former India cricket captain Sunil Gavaskar, as well as pages selling merchandise in his name without authorisation, Bar and Bench reported.

 

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora passed the interim injunction in a suit filed by Gavaskar seeking protection of his personality rights.

Platforms must act within 72 hours

 

The court ordered that Meta users remove the infringing URLs within 72 hours. If they fail to do so, the platform itself must take down the content. A similar direction was issued to X Corp.

 

E-commerce sellers were also instructed to remove listings that misuse Gavaskar’s name to sell products.

 

During the previous hearing, the court had asked Gavaskar to provide the offending URLs to Google, Meta and X, directing them to act on his takedown request within a week.

 

On Tuesday, Senior Advocate Gopal Jain, representing Gavaskar, informed the court that Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) and IP logs of the users had been provided. The court then directed him to amend the memo of parties to include these users in the case, the report said.

Unauthorised use of Gavaskar’s name, image

 

In his plea, Gavaskar highlighted the unauthorised use of his persona, including fake critical comments against Indian men’s cricket team coach Gautam Gambhir and other cricketers. He also flagged fabricated remarks attributed to Virat Kohli.

 

His counsel argued that such fake quotes could damage Gavaskar’s credibility as a broadcaster and cricket commentator.

 

The suit also pointed out fake autographed merchandise and pictures being sold online. People were being charged for these items even though they had no connection with Gavaskar, the news report said.

 

Gavaskar is the first cricketer to approach the court over personality rights. Earlier, several celebrities had secured similar protection. They include actors Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Nagarjuna, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, director Karan Johar, and spiritual leaders such as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Jaggi Vasudev. Most recently, Salman Khan approached the Delhi High Court with a personality rights suit.