The Delhi High Court has cautioned against stretching the concept of “personality rights” too far, stating that not every personal achievement or academic success should qualify for such protection. Justice Tushar Rao Gedela highlighted this while addressing a commercial dispute between rival edtech platforms, which involved allegations of defamation, disparagement, and unauthorized use of trademarks, including the identity of a CLAT 2026 topper. The court emphasized that granting personality rights for every success, like a student excelling in an exam, would create absurd outcomes.
Expanding personality rights to cover all instances of success, according to the court, would set an impractical precedent. Justice Gedela warned that if every achievement were elevated to the status of a ‘personality right,’ it would lead to incongruity and absurdity. The court noted that while personality rights are acknowledged for individuals with significant public recognition and commercial value, they should not extend to isolated academic accomplishments.
The court’s observations arose from a dispute involving conflicting claims over the success of a minor student who secured the top rank in CLAT 2026. The court differentiated the student’s situation from that of the coaching institutes involved, suggesting that she seemed caught in a rivalry between competing edtech entities. Justice Gedeala criticized the defendant institutes for involving the student in their dispute and emphasized her request to stay out of the controversy.
While refraining from definitively deciding on personality rights, the court clarified that the current case could not be resolved solely on that basis. It found the defendants’ online content to be disparaging and aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the plaintiffs, including through the unauthorized use of their trademark “LegalEdge.” Terming the dispute as a bitter professional rivalry, the court prohibited the defendants from publishing defamatory or disparaging content against the plaintiffs on digital platforms.
