Vijayawada: The Delhi High Court on Friday directed social media intermediaries to act within seven days on a plea by Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and Janasena Party chief Pawan Kalyan seeking protection of his personality rights.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora observed that Kalyan had already approached the platforms with his grievances. Referring to a similar case involving actor Ajay Devgn, the court reiterated that plaintiffs must first lodge complaints with intermediaries before seeking judicial intervention.

It ordered the platforms to treat Pawan’s plea as a formal complaint under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and take necessary action within a week. If they have reservations about any links flagged by Kalyan, they must inform him.

Senior advocate J Sai Deepak, representing Pawan, said the Deputy CM was distressed by AI‑generated videos, impersonation, and fake association content circulating on Google, Meta and e‑commerce platforms.

The court directed Pawan to provide URLs of objectionable content within 48 hours. The matter will be heard again on December 22.

Pawan sought to prevent unauthorised use of his name and images, asserting his right to publicity — commonly known as personality rights — which allows individuals to protect, control and profit from their likeness.

The court recently granted interim relief in similar petitions filed by celebrities including Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Devgn, Karan Johar, Kumar Sanu, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sudhir Chaudhary and Raj Shamani.

Salman Khan, NTR Jr and Sunil Gavaskar have also moved the court seeking protection of their personality rights.