Delhi HC Grants Alakh Pandey Ex-Parte Injunction Against Vulgar Stickers, Impersonation and Unauthorised Monetisation, But Flags Overbreadth Risk in Personality Rights Claims
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani grants PhysicsWallah founder Alakh Pandey interim protection against three specific categories of online violation while warning that personality rights cannot suppress caricature or legitimate expression.
The High Court of Delhi on 5 August 2026 passed an ex-parte ad-interim injunction in favour of Alakh Pandey — the founder of the edtech platform PhysicsWallah — restraining a set of John Doe defendants from hosting sexually vulgar content featuring his likeness, impersonating him online, and commercially exploiting his persona without authorisation. Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, sitting singly, registered the commercial suit, issued summons, and simultaneously took up the interim application. The order is significant not only for what it grants but for what it explicitly declines: the court refused to protect the plaintiff against the full sweep of personality-rights violations he had pleaded, cautioning that such rights, if cast too broadly, risk being used to stifle caricature, parody, lampoon, and the reporting of wrongdoing.
The Suit and the Alleged Violations
Alakh Pandey filed CS(COMM) 835/2026 before the Delhi High Court seeking injunctive relief against over thirty defendants, including anonymous infringers, social media platforms, domain name registrars, internet service providers, and government bodies including the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
The plaintiff's counsel, Senior Advocate J. Sai Deepak, handed up a tabulated summary of the allegedly infringing URLs organised into three categories. The first category covered URLs containing sexually vulgar or obscene content — principally sticker packs hosted on external platforms and animated GIFs on Tenor, depicting or using Pandey's image and likeness in explicit or vulgar contexts. The second category covered websites and social media accounts commercially exploiting Pandey's personality, including pages offering unauthorised coupon codes using his branding and a Telegram channel purporting to distribute PhysicsWallah lecture content. The third category covered accounts directly impersonating Pandey, including a Telegram channel, a LinkedIn profile, and an account on X (formerly Twitter).
The relief sought under the interim application was wide. Pandey asked the court to restrain defendants 1 to 20 from hosting, streaming, reproducing, distributing, or otherwise using his name, image, likeness, and voice in any manner; to direct social media intermediaries and domain name registrars to lock and suspend the identified accounts, channels and domain names; to compel those intermediaries to disclose the identity and contact details of the persons behind the infringing accounts; and to issue a rolling injunction covering mirror and redirect websites discovered during the pendency of the suit.
The Court's Word of Caution on Personality Rights
Before turning to the merits of the interim application, Justice Bhambhani recorded a considered reservation about the breadth of the claim before him. Referring to the earlier decision of a Co-ordinate Bench in DM Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. v. Baby Gift House and Others (2010 SCC OnLine Del 490), the court observed that personality rights as claimed in the present matter “may be over broad and therefore susceptible to misapplication.”
The court spelled out its concern in direct terms. Personality rights, as pleaded, could not be permitted to prevent the dissemination of information about alleged wrongdoing, nor could they be used to extinguish an entire genre of expression that includes caricature, lampooning, and parody — provided that expression does not amount to commercial exploitation of the individual's personality or publicity rights.
This caution mattered to the shape of the interim order. Rather than granting the broad injunction sought, the court limited interim protection to three categories of conduct that it found, on a prima facie reading, to fall outside protected expression and within cognisable violation.
The Three Categories Granted Interim Protection
Justice Bhambhani identified the three sets of violations for which the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case:
The first set comprised portrayals of the plaintiff in a sexually vulgar manner. The identified URLs included multiple sticker-pack images and animated GIFs hosted on platforms such as Tenor, featuring Pandey's image in explicit or degrading contexts.
The second set comprised the monetisation of Pandey's personality for commercial gain without any licence or right. This covered websites offering PhysicsWallah coupon codes, a website distributing PW course content without authorisation, and associated social media accounts and Telegram channels.
The third set comprised direct impersonation of Pandey across platforms, including the Telegram channel styled as his lecture channel, the LinkedIn profile, and the account on X.
Having identified these three categories, the court held that the balance of convenience lay with the plaintiff, and that irreparable injury would result if interim relief were withheld.
Directions to Intermediaries and the Mirror-Website Mechanism
The ex-parte ad-interim injunction operates on two levels. Defendants 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, and 20 — the primary infringing parties — are restrained from using or exploiting Pandey's name, image, likeness, or voice in terms of prayers (a) and (b) of the application. Defendants 21 to 31 — the intermediary defendants including social media platforms, domain name registrars, and payment services — are directed to remove or take down the specific URLs listed in the order and to disclose to the plaintiff the identity, addresses, contact details, and payment details of the primary infringing defendants.
The court also put in place a forward-looking mechanism for mirror and redirect websites. If the plaintiff discovers during the pendency of the suit that mirror, alphanumeric, or redirect websites are infringing his rights in content covered by the suit, he may furnish details to the concerned internet service provider or domain name registrar on affidavit with supporting documentation. The ISP or DNR must then technically verify whether the website in question is in fact a mirror or redirect of a defendant website already covered by the injunction. If satisfied, the ISP or DNR enforces the injunction against that site as a pro-tem measure. Simultaneously, the plaintiff must file an application to implead the mirror website in the main proceedings.
Justice Bhambhani was careful to frame the intermediary's role precisely. He noted that under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, intermediaries must operate in a strictly neutral manner to retain safe harbour protection, citing Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1. The direction to ISPs and DNRs, the court clarified, delegates not the discretion to decide whether to block a site, but only the task of technical verification. “The role of the ISP or the DNR is therefore limited only to the extent of technical verification.” If a site is verified as a mirror of an injuncted defendant site, enforcement follows automatically under the court's order.
The court added that any assertion by the plaintiff in an affidavit filed before an ISP or DNR that is found to be baseless, false, or not bona fide would attract appropriate orders from the court.
Service on Unidentified Defendants
Defendant No. 23 — represented by counsel — sought a specific direction regarding defendants 9 to 12, who appear to be subscribers whose basic information Defendant 23 holds. The court directed that defendants 9 to 12 be served independently of Defendant 23, subject to Defendant 23 furnishing their basic subscriber information to the plaintiff to enable such service.
For all unserved defendants, the court directed that summons and notice be sent by all permissible modes, returnable before the learned Joint Registrar.
Outcome
The suit has been registered as CS(COMM) 835/2026. Summons have been issued. Defendants who appeared through counsel accepted summons and sought time to file written statements. Written statements are to be filed within 30 days along with affidavits of admission and denial of documents. The plaintiff may file replications within 30 days thereafter. The matter is listed before the Joint Registrar for completion of pleadings, admission and denial of documents, and marking of exhibits on 6 November 2026.
On the interim application, replies are to be filed within 30 days and rejoinders, if any, within 30 days thereafter. The application is also listed before the Joint Registrar on 6 November 2026 for completion of pleadings, with the matter to be placed before the court thereafter. The plaintiff is directed to comply with Order XXXIX Rule 3 of the CPC within four weeks.