Actor Tabu Moves Delhi High Court Over Alleged Personality Rights Violations

Actor Tabu has moved the Delhi High Court seeking removal of online content that she alleges disparages her and violates her personality rights.

She has also sought action against the unauthorised use of her name and image across social media platforms, websites, and e-commerce portals.

Justice Jyoti Singh heard submissions on Tuesday from social media intermediaries, domain registrars, and e-commerce platforms on their obligation to remove the disputed content.

During the hearing, Meta argued that intermediaries cannot determine whether content is defamatory. "I can't adjudicate what is defamatory and what is not defamatory. The minute I start doing that, all intermediaries will err on the side of caution and take down," its counsel submitted.

Another defendant, GoDaddy, submitted that it could suspend entire domains but not individual URLs. Flipkart, meanwhile, pointed out that it had been incorrectly described in the memo of parties.

Justice Singh also pulled up Tabu's counsel over errors in the memo of parties, observing that such defects were not merely technical and warning that a plaint could be rejected for misjoinder of parties.

The court ultimately directed the parties to reconcile the disputed URL compilations and file a corrected memo of parties before the next hearing on August 6