Bombay High Court ordered that actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha’s iconic dialogue “Khamosh” is linked to his public persona, asking content-creating platforms to remove any unauthorised content using his name, image, voice, likeness or distinctive attributes, immediately.

In an interim order on February 16, Justice Sharmila Deshmukh observed that Sinha’s distinctive dialogue delivery style, particularly his famous utterance of “Khamosh”, identifies his persona and therefore requires legal protection.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the veteran actor through advocate Hiren Kamod seeking recognition and enforcement of his personality rights. Sinha requested ‘a permanent injunction restraining individuals and platforms from exploiting his identity without consent’, especially through generated images and fake handles.

After reviewing, the court said it was of the prima facie view that such acts amounted to infringement of his personality and publicity rights as well as a violation of privacy.

“It needs no reinforcement that the expression "Khamosh" which was delivered by the Plaintiff (Sinha) in his unique and distinct style in one of his films is associated exclusively with the Plaintiff's persona,” the court said.

The order also noted that personality rights give the individual exclusive control over the use of their name, likeness, voice, and personal traits for commercial purposes.

“The personality rights... encompass the right to exclusive use of one's own name, style, voice, personality, and so on, and with the advent of artificial intelligence, digital mediums have been uploaded with digital forgeries resulting in violation of personality rights,” the court observed.

The court also observed that ‘morphing Sinha’s face or creating synthetic media based on his persona could damage his reputation and goodwill’. The court posted Sinha’s petition for further hearing on March 30.