Personality Rights & Commercial Courts Act, 2015
Context:
The issue has gained prominence due to a recent case in the Delhi High Court involving actor Salman Khan and a China-based AI voice generation platform.
The platform filed an application to vacate an interim injunction that protected the actor's personality rights.
Personality Rights:
Personality rights protect the commercial value of an individual’s identity—name, image, voice, likeness, signature, gestures, etc.
Though not codified as a separate statute in India, courts derive them from:
Personality rights recognize the economic value of identity and are distinct from statutory IP rights.
Article 21 (Right to life and privacy) – K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017)
Article 19(1)(g) guarantees the right to conduct business and is subject to reasonable restrictions and cannot be invoked by foreign entities before Indian courts
It does not include personal issues like:
Matrimonial or family disputes
Succession and inheritance matters
Personal service disputes
Purely personal or non-commercial civil disputes
These rights are distinct from statutory IP rights, but operate strongly in the commercial domain, especially for celebrities
Personality rights claims are typically filed under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015.
Under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, a dispute qualifies as “commercial” if it arises out of:
Trade and commerce
Commercial exploitation
Business transactions
Economic value and loss
Personality rights cases typically involve:
Unauthorised commercial exploitation of identity
Monetary gain by third parties
Economic harm or dilution of brand value
Hence, courts treat them as commercial disputes, not purely personal or privacy claims
Why the Commercial Courts Act 2015?
A commercial dispute refers to disputes arising out of ordinary transactions of merchants, traders, bankers, financiers and business entities, where the subject matter is commercial, economic, or business-oriented in nature.
The reason is that celebrities rarely hold conventional intellectual property (IP) rights over their identities, necessitating the use of this Act for adjudication.
Personality rights claims are typically led under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, since celebrities rarely hold conventional IP rights over their identity.