More Stories

Informist, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026

NEW DELHI – The High Court of Delhi Wednesday passed an order to protect Physicswallah Ltd. founder and Chief Executive Officer Alakh Pandey's personality rights. The court directed the takedown of obscene and vulgar material, content commercially exploiting Pandey's personal rights, and derogatory videos and photos impersonating him. 

The high court issued summonses to various websites and social media handles posting derogatory content against Pandey. It asked Google India Pvt. Ltd., X Corp., and Telegram FZ-LLC. to furnish basic subscriber information of uniform resource locators and websites that were posting derogatory content against Pandey. 

Personality rights are the legal claims an individual has to control and protect the commercial and public use of his or her identity, including name, image, voice, and likeness. They consist of two core components, the right to publicity and the right to privacy. 

Pandey's counsel had argued that the educator had acquired a distinct public persona through his work, widespread recognition and popularity, making his personality commercially valuable and deserving of legal protection. Pandey's public persona, face, likeness, and larger-than-life image were being exploited without authorisation across online platforms, advocate J. Sai Deepak, appearing for the entrepreneur, said.

Numerous social media pages and Telegram channels were using Pandey's image and personality attributes to sell coupon codes and other products, while artificial intelligence-generated images, stickers, graphics interchange format, and other content depicting him in sexually explicit or defamatory ways were also circulating online, the counsel said. While harmless memes were not being challenged, several pages were using Pandey's image to market coupon codes while other material portrayed him in sexually demeaning ways, he said.

"I repeat, my Lords, I have not come to this Court to shield me from any kind of criticism, that's not possible in this day and age. But there are some red lines that people have to follow, regardless of my reputation, because it cannot be a situation where a private individual who does not have the position of a personality, his rights with respect to sexual content are better protected than me, and I've signed up for being demeaned in this fashion merely because I've been successful. I am not asserting any right which is not granted by the law under any circumstances," the counsel said. He showed the court instances of impersonation on a Telegram channel called 'Alakh Sir lectures' where both Pandey's name and image are being used. 

Physicswallah Ltd. had posted a consolidated net loss of INR 748.9 million for the March quarter, against a net loss of INR 2.93 billion for the year-ago quarter. Revenue from operations for the quarter jumped 50.7% to INR 9.19 billion. Wednesday, its shares closed at INR 127.81 on the National Stock Exchange, up 1.3% from Tuesday.  End

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Himanshi Gupta

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd. by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt. Ltd.

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2026. All rights reserved.