The Fault in Our Fame – MP High Court Upholds the Release of ‘Haq’
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Madhya Pradesh High Court has dismissed the petition of Siddiqua Begum, daughter of Shah Bano Begum, to stop the release of the film ‘Haq’. Explaining the order, Vasundra Koul argues that this creates a faulty hierarchy of protection based on one’s fame. Vasundra is a fourth-year student at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab, with a keen interest in Intellectual Property and Commercial Law. She enjoys writing on the evolving intersections of law, media, and technology. Her previous posts can be accessed here.
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The Fault in Our Fame – MP High Court Upholds the Release of ‘Haq’
By Vasundra Koul
This year has witnessed a surge in high-profile personality rights cases (such as those filed by Abhishek Bachchan, Hritik Roshan, Karan Johar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and recently Jaya Bachchan). As celebrities are rushing to the Courts to protect themselves from unauthorised commercialisation, the contours of personality rights are being rigorously tested and redefined. The recent decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Ms Siddiqua Begum Khan v Union of India and Ors. marks yet another important juncture in this heated debate between privacy and personality rights in the context of cinematic portrayals of real-life events. Following the route in Deepa Jaya Kumar v. AL Vijay and Ors (2021), which was later echoed in Krishna Kishore Singh v Sarla A Saraogi and Ors (2023) or the Sushant Singh Rajput (SSR) case (discussed here for post by Devangini), the Madhya Pradesh High Court dealt with issues concerning posthumous personality rights. In doing so, it adopted a similar approach while adjudicating on the release of the movie ‘Haq’, a film which encompasses the events that culminated in the landmark judgment on Muslim women’s right to maintenance in Mohammad Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum (1985). (Side Note: I personally found the movie really good, with some of the finest performances by the leading actors.
In this post, I examine how the Haq judgment reflects the judiciary’s current approach to posthumous personality rights and argue that courts, in attempting to navigate this evolving area, are inadvertently creating a hierarchy of protection, where the extent of one’s fame seems to determine the scope of one’s rights.
The Core Dispute
Shah Bano Begum’s daughter, Siddiqua Begum, filed a petition to the MP High Court against the release of the movie ‘Haq’, alleging that it inaccurately portrayed aspects of her mother’s life and that the makers of the movie had failed to obtain the family’s consent. One of her primary contentions was that personality and moral rights are inheritable, and therefore, Shah Bano’s heirs had inherited those rights. She further claimed a violation of their privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution and sought directions to withhold or revoke the certification of the movie.
The producers of the movie ‘Haq’, on the other hand, argued that the makers of the movie had relied on the Supreme Court judgment as well as its fictional adaptation in Jigna Vora’s book ‘Bano: Bharat ki Beti’, which is also clarified in the disclaimer at the beginning of the movie. Against Siddiqua Begum’s argument, the Producers of the movie contended that personality rights are not heritable and thus cannot be enforced against the legal heirs of the deceased. Further, they submitted that their actions were protected under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, as an exercise of artistic and creative freedom. They also flagged that Siddiqua Begum had failed to first approach the Central Government under Section 5-E of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, which empowers the Government to suspend or revoke a film’s certification for contravening the provisions of the Act.
High Court’s Ruling
Rejecting Siddiqua Begum’s contention and relying on the Division Bench (DB) judgment of the Madras High Court in Deepa Jaya Kumar v. AL Vijay and Ors.(2021), the MP High Court held that privacy and reputation earned during the lifetime of a person get extinguished on their death, and thus, such rights are not heritable. In the absence of the same, the Court held that there existed no breach of right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution, and therefore, no consent of the legal heirs of Shah Bano was required in making the movie. The Court further noted that the disclaimer of the movie makes it abundantly clear that the movie is fictional in nature and has been inspired by publicly available information about Shah Bano, which the Apex Court’s judgment in R. Rajagopal v State of Tamil Nadu (1994) had held to be a legitimate subject for public comment once information forms part of the public records. Therefore, the Court dismissed the petition and also noted that Siddiqua Begum ought to have challenged the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) which was granted on 28th October 2025, by availing the alternative statutory remedy under Section 5-E of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, before approaching the High Court.
Inconsistencies and Implications
This is not the first time Courts have held that posthumous right to publicity and privacy do not exist. As seen previously in the SSR case, the Delhi High Court, relying on Deepa Jaya Kumar, had ruled that posthumous rights lapse upon a person’s death and accordingly dismissed the suit. However, a primary distinction between the case and the one at hand lies in the Delhi High Court’s recognition that while posthumous privacy cannot be enforced, a person may still seek damages if they are aggrieved by the publication of the life story of another person on the ground of defamation. This aspect is notably absent in the MP High Court’s reasoning, as Siddiqua Begum failed to raise this argument. Had she done so, the Court may have been required to examine whether other remedial avenues that could have been availed, which could have potentially altered the trajectory of the judgment.
As the jurisprudence on posthumous personality rights continues to evolve, courts are seen grappling with the issue of maintaining consistency in their decisions. Back in February, the Delhi High Court in Sir Ratan Tata Trust & Anr. v Dr. Rajat Shrivastava & Ors. (2025) adopted a somewhat divergent approach. In that case, the Court restrained the defendant from commercially using late Ratan Tata’s name (one of his attributes) since the same was a “well-known personal name”. By doing this, the Court seems to have gone beyond traditional trademark principles where only marks are afforded the designation of being “well-known”. This reasoning of protecting ‘well-known personal name’ was also echoed in Mr. Arun Jaitley v. Network Solutions Private Limited & Ors., (2011) (discussed here by Amlan Mohanty) wherein the Court differentiated between commercial exploitation of a personal name as a trademark and an individual’s personal right to use his/her personal name. Taken together, what seems to emerge is an evolving acknowledgement that names of certain personalities possess an independent right to be protected as well, alongside well-known trademarks.
However, the issue with the Ratan Tata decision lies precisely in this reliance on the idea of a ‘well-known personal name’, a concept which lacks statutory backing, as the Trade Marks Act, 1999 confines itself to recognising ‘well-known trademarks’ under Section 2(1)(zg) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 only. Ratan Tata’s name, despite its immense public recognition, was not registered as a trademark. Therefore, extending protection to it under the guise of a ‘well-known personal name’ effectively stretched the law beyond its legislative limits.
If courts were to accord protection to names under trademark law, such protection should be confined to those names that are formally registered as trademarks and where distinctiveness and commercial use can be established. By granting relief in the Ratan Tata decision, while simultaneously refusing such posthumous protection in the Shah Bano case, the court seems to have only reaffirmed a type of protection that is grounded in fame, one that had already begun to take shape in the Arun Jaitley case in 2011. If the logic of the Ratan Tata decision were to be accepted, it would essentially mean that posthumous protection could be given whenever a name is used in a commercial context, which would be antithetical to the principle that personality rights ‘die with the death’ of an individual.
Concluding Remarks
It seems that Courts in recent cases have grappled with drawing a clear boundary between commercial trademark protection and an individual’s control over one’s persona. While trademark law concerns itself with a commercial association intended to identify the source of goods or services, personality rights govern the use of an individual’s identity and associated attributes. However, personality rights are not entirely detached from trademark as the former evolved from the tort of passing off, recognised under Section 27(2) Trade Marks Act, 1999. The same was discussed in greater detail in this episode of the ‘Let’s IPsa Loquitur’ podcast.
That said, trademark protection remains a statutory remedy, whereas personality rights extend beyond registered marks to address deception or commercial exploitation of identity itself. However, since trademark law operates primarily in the sphere of commerce, its framework cannot adequately account for instances where an individual’s name is invoked beyond a commercial context, leaving out many aspects of personal identity unprotected. Thus, when elements of an individual’s personality, such as their likeness, mannerisms or voice, are used in a non-commercial context, the Act cannot provide an equitable protection, as these attributes lie outside the scope of what the Act is designed to regulate.
Thus, to the naked eye, what appears to be followed by courts is a classification of well-known personalities and not-so-well-known personalities. While upholding the release of the movie ‘Haq’, the Court has rightly reaffirmed that personality rights are not inheritable. I am inclined to agree with this approach as I believe extending such rights beyond death would unduly extend control over an individual’s legacy and risk curtailing the creative expression of those who engage with or interpret that legacy today.
However, by taking an approach different from the Ratan Tata case, the Court has essentially and implicitly concluded that Shah Bano may not hold the same stature as Ratan Tata. This, in my opinion, can set a rather dangerous precedent, which has the potential to create hierarchies of protection based on fame and thus invite more litigation. It also makes me wonder, had the movie been made on Ratan Tata’s life instead, without obtaining any consent of his representatives/legal heirs, would the Court have arrived at the same conclusion? It brings to mind Orwell’s enduring observations that ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.