Delhi HC to platforms: Act in 7 days on Pawan Kalyan’s personality rights complaint

The Delhi High Court has directed social media intermediaries to process Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan’s personality-rights complaint within seven days, treating it as a formal grievance under the IT (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The court also asked platforms to inform Kalyan if they have reservations about any specific links flagged. In a nod to a recent Ajay Devgn matter, the judge reiterated a procedural baseline: public figures must first lodge a protest with platforms before seeking court intervention.

The key takeaway here: this isn’t a new law, but it is a clear signal on sequencing, speed, and accountability under India’s existing intermediary framework. What this means for creators, talent managers, and brands is simple-before you think injunction, think inbox. Use the official grievance channels, compile precise URLs, and keep a paper trail. For platforms operating in India, the seven-day directive underscores judicial expectations for timely action on personality-rights claims, beyond generic “we’re looking into it” responses. The bigger picture is a more standardized playbook for takedowns related to name, image, and likeness misuse-one that reduces whack‑a‑mole escalations if everyone follows the same path.

Worth noting for brands: if you run celebrity-led campaigns, tighten approvals and usage logs, and set up an always-on monitoring workflow for impersonation, unauthorized endorsements, and misleading edits. For agencies, pre-build templated notices that reference the IT Rules and list specific asset links-paper trail beats panic DMs every time. What this means for creators is faster, more predictable recourse if your persona is misused, provided you start with the platform’s grievance mechanism. And for platforms, transparency matters: if you dispute a takedown request, communicate clearly on which URLs and why. The practical implication for social teams today is to document, timestamp, and route complaints correctly-so if you do end up in court, you’ve already done the mandatory first step.