Delhi High Court protects Karan Johar's personality rights; bars misuse of morphed images, 'KJo' acronym

The Delhi High Court has passed an ex parte ad interim injunction in favour of filmmaker and TV personality Karan Johar, protecting his personality rights [Karan Johar v. Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors].

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that infringers cannot use Johar's name, acronym 'Kjo', his likeness, image, voice or any other aspect of his persona.

The Court also banned misuse of his deepfakes, GIFs and other AI created content for commercial gain.

"The Primary Infringing Defendants or anyone acting for or on their behalf are restrained from utilizing the Plaintiff-Karan Johar’s name, his acronym ‘KJo’, likeness, image, voice, personality or any other aspects of his persona to create any merchandise, or in any other manner misuse the said attributes using technological tools such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, deep fakes, face morphing, GIFs either for monetary gains or otherwise to create any videos, photographs, etc., for commercial purposes, so as to result in violation of the Plaintiff's rights," the Court ordered.

Justice Arora ruled that it was evident that the videos, memes and social media posts available on social media platforms contained abusive and profane words as well as innuendoes, which appeared to be offensive.

"The said content tarnishes the reputation and goodwill of the Plaintiff affecting his brand value. The Plaintiff is prima facie entitled to seek injunction to protect his personality rights again such negative use," the Court order read.

Notably, the High Court had earlier passed similar orders in favour of actors Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and many other celebrities.

Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao appeared for Johar on Friday and alleged that his client's name was being misused to raise funds.

"I am celebrity and I don't want to look in a certain manner...I am subjected to public ridicule. The objective is this that it starts a diatribe against me and is monetised."

Rao stated that there should be a limit to public ridicule with the purpose of generating money.

"Do I have a right to prevent someone from using my attributes per se? Don't stoop to level of public ridicule. At some point they should be called to court, a line should be drawn. I will draw the line at some level. I will look away for hundreds of posts. But some things are non-negotiable," he stated.

Meta Platforms (owners of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) told the Court that many of the comments flagged in Johar's suit were not defamatory. Passing a blanket injunction will open floodgates for litigation, advocate Varun Pathak contended.

The Court stated that it will not consider passing an order on comments that amount to sarcasm or satire. Justice Arora also expressed consternation on going through large number of social media posts submitted on behalf of Johar.

The Court passed an interim order in favour of Johar and also asked the intermediaries to provide BSI details and IP log details.

The matter will be heard next on February 19, 2026.

Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao with advocates Nizamuddin Pasha, Parag Khandhar, Chandrima Mitra, Krishan Kumar and Sidharth Kaushik appeared for Karan Johar.

[Read Order]