Kamal Haasan moves Madras High Court to protect his personality rights

Actor Kamal Haasan has filed a John Doe suit (a case filed against unknown individuals / entities) before the Madras High Court to protect his personality rights and prevent commercial exploitation of his name, initials, portraits, images or any other attributes related to his persona without his express consent.

Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy is expected to hear the actor’s suit as well as his plea for interim injunctions on Monday (January 12, 2026). In his plaint, the 71-year-old actor told the court that he has been in the film industry since childhood and created a niche for himself through his expertise in various art forms.

Referring to a specific instance of a Chennai-based firm named ‘Neeye Vidai’ selling T-shirts and shirts printed with his portraits, name, initials, his title ‘Ulaganayagan’ and famous dialogues from his movies without his consent, the actor sought an injunction against the firm as well as all other unknown entities who indulge in such acts.

In his main suit, the actor had sought a permanent injunction against ‘Neeye Vidai’ as well as John Doe (a name used for the unknown entities) and their associates, agents, servants, affiliates, holding companies, assignees, substitutes, representatives, group companies, their subscribers, employees and such other persons.

He wanted the court to restrain them from violating his personality rights by directly or indirectly utilising, using, exploiting or misappropriating his name ‘Kamal Haasan’, the abbreviation ‘KH’, his image or its likeness or any other attributes which are exclusively identifiable with his persona.

The actor contended that no one could be allowed to unauthorisedly exploit his persona for commercial or personal gains in any manner whatsoever including the use of artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI, machine learning, deep fakes, face morphing and other new technologies.

Apart from the main prayer for a permanent injunction in his suit, the actor had also filed four applications seeking interim injunctions of similar nature. He insisted that no one could be permitted to create, share or disseminate products (such as clothes, coffee mugs and posters) or content (images/videos) violating his personality rights.

Stating that the unauthorised use of his images and names in those products ends up giving a wrong impression to the people as if he had endorsed them, the actor submitted before the court a copy of the some of the products to prove how his personality rights had been violated by the Chennai-based firm.