Delhi HC rejects Gautam Gambhir’s plea to restrain a restro-bar from using his name

The Delhi High court on Wednesday dismissed a plea filed by cricketer Gautam Gambhir, seeking to restrain a Delhi based enterprise, & lsquo DAP & Co.' from using his name as tagline in its pubs. The enterprise & lsquo DAP & Co.' is the owner of two pubs in Delhi, & lsquo Hawalat' and & lsquo Ghungroo' and the cricketer discovered that both of them were using the tagline & lsquo Gautam Gambhir', that is causing confusion to his fans. The ace cricketer, Gautam Gambhir filed a publicity right case against the proprietor for using his name in an unauthorized manner. He argued that his name is used in the tagline without his permission and this is prejudicing his image. Advocates Kunal Anand and Richaa Kapoor representing the defendant & lsquo DAP & Co.' contended that the defendant's name is also Gautam Gambhir and therefore this name is used in the tagline of the pubs. The advocates also stated that this is not creating any false association as these pubs are not using any cricket image, symbol or lingo in their ambiance. The cricketer argued that because of his contribution in Indian cricket, he has attained a distinctive reputation and therefore the use of his name in such restaurants immediately leads to its association with his identity. He also claimed that the pubs are exploiting the value of his name to deceive his fans and attack crowd. He even resorted to social media to clear this confusion caused by the tagline. The defendant told the court that he has been running another restro-bar, & lsquo Blu Wavs' with the same tagline for years, but no similar complaint has been made by the cricketer in the past. The court rejected the petition filed by Gautam Gambhir and allowed the defendants to run its restro-bar with the same tagline. Publicity right as so highlighted in this case belongs to the Intellectual Property regime and is a personal right. According to this right, any attempt to take away the & lsquo right to publicity' of an individual shall be violative of the Fundamental rights so enshrined in Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution. This is because only the individual is entitled to derive profit from his publicity. However, in the present case, the cricketer is not entitled to use this right. Though, Gautam Gambhir has a distinctive identity and peculiar indica of his own, the defendant cannot be said to have violated his publicity right as he also has the same name, and there is no other evidence of using the image of the cricketer to deceive the public.