New Delhi, Dec 23: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday safeguarded the personality rights of former Indian cricketer and commentator Sunil Gavaskar, directing multiple websites and online platforms to stop the unauthorised commercial use of his name and images without his permission.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora also barred the defendants from exploiting Gavaskar’s identity through artificial intelligence tools, including deepfake technology, and ordered the removal of objectionable and obscene content circulating online.

The court instructed websites hosting the offensive material to take it down within 72 hours. If they fail to comply, the concerned social media intermediaries have been directed to remove the content themselves. The case has been scheduled for further hearing on May 22.

Earlier, on December 12, the High Court had asked social media intermediaries to act within seven days on Gavaskar’s complaint seeking protection of his personality rights. Gavaskar was first directed to raise his grievances with the platforms, which were told to treat his plea as a formal complaint under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

On Tuesday, the court was informed that although some of the disputed content had been taken down, several links were still accessible online.

Gavaskar approached the High Court to restrain social media platforms and e-commerce websites from misusing his name, images, persona and likeness, and to secure his personality and publicity rights. Personality rights allow individuals to control and benefit from the commercial use of their identity, including their name, image and likeness.