NEW DELHI, July 27 — The story begins not with a blockbuster premiere, but inside a courtroom, where the line between publicity and privacy is being redrawn. Salman Khan has asked the Delhi High Court to stop a film he says is using his legal past to sell tickets — a case that is fast becoming a landmark for personality rights in India. At its heart is the teaser for a film provisionally tied to the “Kala Hiran” case — the blackbuck poaching incident in which Khan was convicted.
Khan’s legal team argued that the teaser does not use his name directly, but nonetheless infringes his personality rights by creating an unmistakable link to his involvement in that case. They contend this amounts to unauthorised commercial exploitation.
The producer, Amit Jani, pushed back through his own counsel. The teaser does not feature Khan’s name, they said, and contains no deepfake footage or AI-generated video of the actor. More bluntly, they argued that there is no legal protection over public events or public performances — that a filmmaker can reference a real, publicised court case without a celebrity’s permission.
The Delhi High Court was not entirely convinced. In a pointed reprimand, the bench suggested that the film may be deliberately skirting the law — crafting a production that hints strongly at Khan’s legal troubles without technically naming him, a tactic the judge called out as potentially evading boundaries.
The court’s interim order instructs the producer to remove all social media links promoting the teaser, pending a full hearing on the merits of the personality rights claim.
A Clash of Rights
India has no dedicated statute governing personality rights — the legal concept that protects a person’s name, image, or likeness from being used without permission for commercial gain. Instead, protection currently rests on two legs: common law principles of privacy and publicity, and, for certain aspects, the Indian Copyright Act of 1957. That patchwork framework is now being tested by a case that questions how far the law can stretch when a celebrity’s past is the product being sold.
For those involved, the stakes are personal and professional. For Amit Jani and his team, the defence is about creative freedom — the right to make a film inspired by a public incident without being sued every time a resemblance is drawn.
“There is no protection over events or public performances,” the producer’s counsel told the court, making a distinction between using a person’s image and referencing an historical event.
What’s Next
The court’s interim order is not a final verdict. It simply puts the teaser’s social media campaign on hold while both sides prepare a fuller case. But the reprimand toward Amit Jani signals a judicial willingness to treat even indirect references with caution — a sign that personality rights may be tightening in India, even without a fresh statute.
A full hearing in the coming weeks will decide whether the teaser can return to social media, or whether the Kala Hiran case stays a part of legal history — not a box office draw.
Sources
{“@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “NewsArticle”, “headline”: “Personality Rights in Indian Law: Can Events Be Protected?”, “description”: “NEW DELHI, July 27 — The story begins not with a blockbuster premiere, but inside a courtroom, where the line between publicity and privacy is…”, “datePublished”: “2026-07-27T09:30:00+00:00”, “author”: {“@type”: “Person”, “name”: “Sophie King”}, “publisher”: {“@type”: “Organization”, “name”: “InfoPulse Today”, “url”: “https://newsfeed.infopulsetoday.com/”}, “citation”: [{“@type”: “CreativeWork”, “url”: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights”}]}
