By Deepika Shrivastav and Sehar Sethi
The Delhi High Court has recently granted an interim injunction to safeguard the intellectual property rights associated with the iconic film Andaz Apna Apna. This judicial action effectively aims to shield the film’s creative and commercial integrity from potential infringement.
The suit in Vinay Pictures v. Good Hope & Ors[1]. was filed by the Plaintiff seeking permanent injunction to stop the defendants from infringing the plaintiff’s copyright and trademark related to the Hindi film Andaz Apna Apna, including acts of passing off, dilution,, and related claims like damages.
Brief Facts
The plaintiff is an Indian production house founded by the late Vinay Kumar Sinha, who produced the 1994 Hindi film Andaz Apna Apna, now re-released in April 2025. After his death in 2020, his legal heirs, including the plaintiff Shanti Vinay Kumar Sinha, inherited his rights and have filed this suit accordingly.
The plaintiff maintains an exclusive and proprietary interest in the entirety of the film’s creative and commercial essence. This includes, but is not limited to, the core concepts, narrative format, and all associated intellectual property. This encompasses the unique characterizations, memorable dialogues, distinct stylistic elements, and underlying works. While certain exploitation rights, such as those pertaining to streaming distribution, have been temporarily assigned, the plaintiff retains all fundamental rights and ownership of the original work.
Contentions of the Plaintiff
Each primary character within Andaz Apna Apna has cultivated a dedicated and distinct following.
For instance, Crime Master Gogo has achieved a cult status, largely attributed to his eccentric attire, memorable dialogue, and humorous villainy. The comedic synergy of Amar and Prem, defined by their contrasting personas—the former’s cunning and loquacious nature versus the latter’s endearing innocence—has solidified their iconic standing as a quintessential Bollywood comic duo.
Furthermore, the dual roles of Teja and Shyam Gopal Bajaj (and his twin Ram Gopal Bajaj), both masterfully portrayed by Paresh Rawal, are instrumental to the film’s signature narrative of comedic confusion and orchestrated chaos.
The film features several iconic and widely recognized catchphrases that have gained strong public association with the plaintiff’s film, such as “Aila,” “Ouima,” and “Teja main hoon, mark idhar hai,” among others.
The plaintiffs contend that the defendants are infringing upon their rights by using content from the film Andaz Apna Apna to produce and sell unauthorized merchandise. Defendants 1-18 and 22-24 are allegedly using the film’s name, characters, and dialogues on various products, including t-shirts, mugs, posters, and digital art. Additionally, Defendant no. 18 also registered the domain https://ailaouima.com, a signature catchphrase in the film. The said domain re-directed to the etsy storefront of the said defendant selling the unauthorised merchandise. These items are being sold through their own websites and major e-commerce platforms like Meesho, Flipkart, Etsy, and Desert Cart, reaching both domestic and international customers. This unauthorized activity, the plaintiffs argue, causes significant financial harm and dilution to their intellectual property. A few examples of the abovementioned infringing activities illustrated below:
The plaintiff claims that the defendants are falsely associating their infringing products with the film, risking damage to its reputation due to the likely lower quality of these goods. This could mislead consumers into believing the products are officially endorsed, causing harm to the plaintiff’s brand. The unauthorized use of famous dialogues and scenes from the film amounts to copyright infringement of both the literary and cinematographic works.
Brief note on character merchandising
The present suit includes exploitation of distinctive characteristics of fictional characters and merchandising of said attributes. This is recognized internationally under the concept of “Character merchandising”. The WIPO report [2]on character merchandising defines three types of character merchandising which includes:
- Merchandising of Fictional Characters;
- Personality Merchandising;
- Image Merchandising.
The WIPO report defines character merchandising as ‘Character merchandising can be defined as the adaptation or secondary exploitation, by the creator of a fictional character or by a real person or by one or several authorized third parties, of the essential personality features (such as the name, image or appearance) of a character in relation to various goods and/or services with a view to creating in prospective customers a desire to acquire those goods and/or to use those services because of the customers’ affinity with that character.’
In India, there isn’t a specific law for character merchandising, but it is still protected under the existing intellectual property laws and court decisions. Further, despite limited jurisprudence on the concept of ‘character merchandizing’ in India, the issue was discussed in Disney Enterprises & Anr. v. Santosh Kumar & Anr.[3], where the Delhi High Court ruled that the defendants were liable for the unauthorized sale of goods featuring characters such as Hannah Montana and Winnie the Pooh which constituted infringement on the plaintiffs’ exclusive merchandising rights. The judgment emphasized that the public’s strong association of these characters with the plaintiffs’ brand identity made the defendants’ actions misleading and harmful to the plaintiffs’ commercial interests.
Summary of Order passed
In recognition of the proprietary rights of the production house over the characters and cinematographic elements of the film, the court ruled that given the circumstances, the plaintiff has established a strong prima facie case for an interim injunction. Without such relief, the plaintiff is likely to suffer irreparable harm. The balance of convenience also favors the plaintiff over the defendants.
Therefore, the court granted an ex-parte ad-interim injunction against defendants 1 to 16, 18, and 19 (including unknown parties), along with their associates, preventing them from:
- Creating or distributing any content—visual, audio, or AI-generated—that is based on, or derived from, the film Andaz Apna Apna.
- Manufacturing, selling, or promoting any merchandise or services that use the film’s trademark, name, characters, or related elements.
- Misleading the public into thinking their products are officially associated with the film.
- Engaging in any conduct which is likely to dilute the film’s brand by using its name or similar variations in domain names, social media, or hashtags.
Furthermore, the defendants must remove all listings for infringing videos and merchandise. Google LLC (Defendant 26), as the owner of YouTube, has also been ordered to immediately remove specific infringing videos and content uploaded by defendants 19-21. This injunction also extends to any mirror websites or URLs used by the defendants to access the infringing material.
In its ruling, the court further directed several e-commerce platforms—Desertcart, Etsy, Flipkart, and Meesho—to immediately remove all product listings that infringe on the film Andaz Apna Apna. These platforms, along with Google LLC (YouTube) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), must also provide the plaintiffs with all available information about the sellers or creators of the infringing content. Furthermore, MeitY is specifically instructed to block and disable all infringing websites and social media channels listed by the plaintiff.
The matter has been scheduled for its next hearing on September 26, 2025. It will be of considerable interest to observe the future developments and ultimate resolution of the case.
[1] CS(COMM) 475/2025
[1] https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/copyright/en/docs/wo_inf_108.pdf
[1] CS(OS) 3032/2011