NEW DELHI: Micro-blogging site X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday opposed Patanjali founder Ramdev’s plea in the Delhi High Court, seeking personality rights and deletion of tweets that contain his name, image or other identifiable attributes and posted without consent.
X stated that political commentary, satire, fair comment and public speech cannot be ordered to be taken down in matters seeking protection of personality rights.
The submission was made before Justice Jyoti Singh, who briefly heard the matter before posting it for tomorrow. The court directed the parties to file a short note giving details of the contents that were being objected to.
Ramdev has sought to restrain various social media entities from using his title, image, likeness, voice, unique style of discourse and delivery and other attributes without his authorisation for commercial gain.
He also alleged that the defendants were exploiting his personality rights in all formats, including videos generated through artificial intelligence and deepfakes.
The plea also sought deletion of various posts on X, Facebook and other social media platforms.
Besides Ramdev, actor Salman Khan, Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Pawan Kalyan, cricketer Sunil Gavaskar and actor NTR Junior have also filed similar suits before the Delhi High Court.
The coordinate Benches of the High Court had passed orders protecting the personality rights of 'The Art of Living foundation' founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Telugu actor Nagarjuna, Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and film producer Karan Johar.
In a similar matter related to Bollywood actor Ajay Devgan, the court had called for differentiating malicious deepfakes from harmless fan activity, while asking him to give his fans freedom to use his image and videos.
