Today, while refusing to halt the movie based on life story of Lt. Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the single headed bench of Justice C Hari Shankar said that his publicity and privacy rights are not heritable and have ended with his demise.

''To fasten a legal right, on something as fleeting as a celebrity, appears to be an oxymoron”.

He added that “law cannot allow itself to be a vehicle to promote celebrity culture”.

“It does not appear permissible, in our constitutional scheme which guarantees equality to individuals and in which equality is a cherished preambular goal, to countenance an extra bundle of rights which would be available for enjoyment only to celebrities,” the court said.

“Rights which emanate from one’s personality and persona would be available to one and all, not only to celebrities,” he added.

The movie was released on OTT platform Lapalap in June 2021, a year after his death.

The court rejected injunction suit by the late actor’s father against continued streaming of the film by producers and director, saying that apart, even assuming the film does infract the publicity rights of SSR, or defames him, the infracted right is personal to Rajput, and cannot be said to have been inherited by his father.

“The movie cannot be said to be infracting Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India. Injuncting further dissemination of the movie would, therefore, infract the defendants’ rights under Article 19(1)(a),” the court ruled.

Mr.Varun Singh, Advocate represented KRISHNA KISHORE SINGH father of Sushant Singh Rajput whereas Mr. Chander M. Lall, Sr. Adv.
with Mr. Bhushan M. Oza and Mr. Anand Mishra, Advs. appeared for directors and Mr. Vedanta Vurma, Mr. Akhil Kumar and Ms. Ananya appeared for the producers.