Delhi High Court To Pass Interim Order Protecting Gautam Gambhir's Personality Rights

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said it will pass an interim order to protect the personality rights of Indian cricket coach Gautam Gambhir.

Justice Jyoti Singh observed during the hearing that most of the URLs identified in the suit had already been made inaccessible by intermediaries such as Meta, Google/YouTube, Amazon, and Flipkart, and said the injunction would be confined to specific links placed on record.

The matter had earlier been adjourned after the court flagged that the plaintiff's application did not contain precise prayers seeking takedown of specific URLs.

On Wednesday, the Court noted that the defects had been cured and the plaintiff had filed a consolidated list of infringing links.

Counsel appearing for Meta submitted that almost all the impugned links on its platform were already inaccessible and handed over a chart of URLs. The court rwas however, informed that only one link related to a profile page titled “Confused Atma”, which Meta said did not match the subject matter of the suit and that “injuncting a profile is like pre-publication.”

The Court directed that if the plaintiff finds any other links identical to the infringing material, the same may be brought to Meta's counsel, who shall take action within 36 hours.

During the hearing, the court also dealt with objections raised by Amazon Seller Services, which argued that the links initially supplied were only search-result pages and did not identify specific infringing products. The plaintiff thereafter furnished exact URLs of listings selling unauthorised merchandise bearing Gambhir's likeness, including posters, bats, mugs and T-shirts, after which the Court said directions would be passed only with respect to the specific listings.

With respect to Google/YouTube, the Court was informed that two active URLs contained AI-generated and face-swapped videos of Gambhir.

Justice Singh directed that the links be taken down and ordered the platforms to provide Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) and IP log details of the uploaders to take further action.

The Court refused the plaintiff's request for a general direction requiring intermediaries to monitor and remove all infringing material, stating:

“There can't be a general direction. I can't ask them to take down all pages or block websites… As a court, I cannot pass a direction to take down somebody's whole page or whole website. How can I? I don't have those powers at all.”

Concluding the hearing, the court said the injunction will operate only on the final list of URLs placed before it and added that any affected party would be free to seek modification of the order if the takedown directions caused unintended consequences.

The suit is now listed before the Joint Registrar on April 20, 2026, for further proceedings.