The Delhi High Court has protected the personal rights of Gautam Gambhir, head coach of the Indian men’s cricket team, and barred entities from using his personality without his consent.
A bench of Justice Jyoti Singh in a March 25 order, issued on Saturday, observed that Gambhir is among India’s most decorated cricketers and that unauthorized content and merchandise deriving commercial value from his goodwill and considerable reputation amount to infringement of his personality and rights of publicity.
The court ordered the authorities to remove the violating content within 36 hours. “…[Gambhir] He has represented India in 242 ODIs across Tests, ODIs and T20Is and is most notable for his match-winning innings in the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 Final and the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final…”
Post retirement, Gambhir moved to a different role in mentoring and coaching and was appointed head coach in July 2024. “…Under his leadership, India won the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy, 2025 Asia Cup and 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup,” Justice Singh said.
Gambhir sought to protect his personal rights, citing a coordinated campaign involving digital impersonation, artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes, and unauthorized commercial exploitation of his persona. He said there has been a sharp rise in fabricated digital content related to it across platforms such as Instagram, X, YouTube and Facebook since 2025.
Gambhir said multiple accounts used artificial intelligence tools, including face swapping and voice cloning techniques, to create realistic videos that falsely portrayed him as making statements he never made. He referred to the fabricated “resignation announcement” that reportedly received more than 2.9 million views. Gambhir said e-commerce platforms facilitate the unauthorized sale of posters and merchandise bearing his name and likeness.
