Mumbai: A Mumbai civil court has ordered for temporary restraint on access to an online mobile game titled ‘Selmon Bhoi’. The online game is allegedly based on a hit-and-run incident involving Bollywood actor Salman Khan. Civil court judge KM Jaiswal passed the order Monday and a copy of it was made available Tuesday.
The court issued a restrain order on the makers of the online game, ‘Parody Studios Pvt Ltd’ and its directors. It prevented them from disseminating, launching, re-launching and recreating the game or any other content relating to Salman Khan..
The court also directed the makers to immediately take-down/ block/ disable access to the game from Google Play Store and all other platforms.
“Upon watching the game and its images, it prima facie matches with the identity of the plaintiff (Khan). It also matches with the hit-and-run case connected to the plaintiff,” the court said. It further said Salman had never given his consent for the game.
“When the plaintiff has not given his consent for developing of the game, which is very similar to his identity and the case against him, certainly his right to privacy is being deprived and his image is also being tarnished,” the order said. The court added that the game developers used Salman’s identity and popularity for commercial gain.
Salman had filed an application in the court last month against the developers of the game. He claimed that the name and images displayed in the game appeared to be his caricature version.
The application claimed that the game ‘Selmon Bhoi’ is phonetically the same as Salman’s popular name amongst his fans, ‘Salman Bhai’.
“The game developers intentionally gained commercial advantage by exploiting the personality rights of our client without seeking our client’s consent,” said the actor’s application filed through law firm ‘DSK Legal’.
The court directed the developers to file their affidavit to Salman’s plea and posted the matter for further hearing September 20.
The Bombay High Court in 2015 acquitted Salman of all charges in the 2002 hit-and-run case.
