The Delhi High Court (HC) declined to shut down “fan pages” wholesale in personality rights suits filed by actors Khushi Kapoor and Janhvi Kapoor. It granted narrow relief against obscene content and unauthorised merchandise while leaving fan-run accounts for later hearings, LiveLaw reported. The refusal departs from a run of Delhi HC orders this year that granted broad injunctions, including in the Ravi Kishan, Aman Gupta and Varun Dhawan cases.

What the Court would not do: In Janhvi Kapoor’s suit, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani refused a blanket injunction covering the 6,884 URLs she cited. He declined to injunct fan pages as a class, holding that they could involve satire, lampooning, criticism or admiration. He said he would consider relief in three categories:

  • Content that is obscene or pornographic on its face.
  • Content that directly monetises her personality rights.
  • Content using her name and likeness to sell merchandise or services.

Bhambhani warned that blanket personality rights orders could be misused, pointing to cases where celebrities invoked such rights to hide wrongdoing. “I do not incline to grant any blanket orders in the name of personality rights,” he said.

On the word “misleading” in the pleadings, he said, “Misleading is a very, very value-loaded word. It’s a very subjective… phrase. I can’t injunct this.” On the volume of links, he said, “It is going out of hand. Started with something small, done with all good intentions. Now we are sitting at 6884 URLs. It can’t be like that.”

In Khushi Kapoor’s suit, heard a day later, Justice Jyoti Singh confined relief to obscene or pornographic content and unauthorised merchandise. Meta objected that a separate set of flagged links were fan pages rather than impersonation accounts, citing Instagram bio disclaimers. Khushi’s counsel chose not to press that category, saying she would argue it separately.

Where the monetisation line sits: Both suits put commercial exploitation at the centre, rather than just obscenity. Both sisters argued that a photograph clicked by a third party could still amount to persona exploitation if someone used it commercially. Bhambhani questioned how that claim squares with the copyright held by the photographer.

Janhvi’s counsel made two further allegations against fan accounts:

  • Several accounts openly solicited paid promotions while posting obscene or zoomed-in images.
  • Meta runs advertising campaigns on pages that gain enough traction, turning fan activity into commercial exploitation.

Meta countered that fan page operators could have livelihood interests and free speech protections, particularly where they identify themselves as fans rather than impersonators. Meta also referred to an earlier order involving actor-politician Pawan Kalyan, arguing that thousands of URLs had been clubbed together without individual scrutiny and that some contained innocuous pictures.

The AI-generated edits question: Janhvi Kapoor’s suit named artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot platforms among the defendants and sought the removal of AI-generated images alongside impersonating accounts and unauthorised merchandise. The hearing itself turned on fan pages, merchandise and obscene content, so the Court has not yet engaged directly with the AI-edit question.

The issue sits within the same monetisation and consent framework that the Court is now drawing: the point at which a fan-made image using a celebrity’s likeness becomes unlawful exploitation. Earlier Delhi HC orders restrained persona misuse through AI, deepfakes and chatbots directly. Bhambhani’s category-by-category approach could therefore narrow how far AI-edit takedown requests can run.

The question maps onto the collapse of the Disney-OpenAI deal earlier in 2026:

  • OpenAI shut down its Sora video app in March 2026.
  • Disney then dropped a $1 billion investment and licensing deal that would have let users generate videos featuring more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters.
  • User-generated copyright infringement, operating costs and concerns over control of how the intellectual property (IP) appeared drove the exit, with no money having changed hands.

The Kapoor suits raise the same tension one layer down, where the likeness belongs to an individual and the “fan edit” becomes the unlicensed output.

What happens next: Bhambhani dealt separately with the first 573 URLs of allegedly obscene material in Janhvi’s suit, directing the government to issue removal notifications immediately. He directed her counsel to file a tabulated list identifying each URL and the defendant connected to it. The Court routed Khushi’s takedown requests through the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

  • Janhvi’s suit: Further hearing on August 17.
  • Khushi’s suit: Joint Registrar on September 17; interim application on December 18.

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