Delhi High Court Grants Interim Relief to Woman in Deepfake Defamation Case, Orders Takedown of Explicit Content

The Delhi High Court has granted ad interim injunction in favour of a woman who sought protection against the online circulation of non-consensual explicit content, including deepfakes and morphed images, holding such dissemination a grave violation of her fundamental rights.

The order was passed by Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, in a civil suit filed against multiple individuals, pornographic websites, and social media intermediaries including X Corp, Meta, Google LLC, and the Union of India.

The suit sought permanent and mandatory injunctions along with damages, alleging that the plaintiff had been targeted through the deliberate and unlawful online publication and circulation of obscene, pornographic, AI-generated, and defamatory content aimed at maligning her reputation.

The Court observed, after examining the material placed in a sealed envelope, that “on a prima facie perusal of the same, it is seen that the content is completely appalling, deplorable, defamatory, and is a patent breach of the fundamental rights of the plaintiff.”

Key directions issued by the Court include:

1. Restraining defendants 1 to 27, which include social media accounts and pornographic websites, from uploading or disseminating any non-consensual explicit images of the plaintiff.

2. Immediate takedown of the URLs mentioned in the plaint by all concerned defendants, including intermediary platforms such as X Corp (defendant 28) and Meta Platforms Inc.

3. Google LLC informed the Court that it had de-indexed the identified URLs from its search engine and agreed to take similar action for any future offending links notified through Google’s takedown webform.

4. The Union of India was directed to block access to the pornographic websites listed in the suit and ensure that the URLs of the relevant webpages are also blocked at the ISP level.

In addition, the Court directed Meta and X Corp to disclose within 15 days the basic subscriber information and complete details of defendants 1 to 8, who were allegedly responsible for originating and circulating the content.

The bench also directed the Registry to maintain confidentiality of the plaintiff’s identity by removing her name from the case title and allowing further submissions of material in sealed cover.

The Court listed the matter before the Joint Registrar on September 25, 2025, for completion of service, pleadings, and marking of exhibits, with the main matter to be taken up before the Court thereafter.

The plaintiff had relied on previous decisions of the Delhi High Court under similar circumstances, including orders dated 20.11.2024 in CS(OS) 165/2023, 22.02.2024 in CS(OS) 134/2024, and 11.12.2024 in W.P.(CRL) 1898/2024, where similar protections were granted in cases involving deepfake and morphed imagery.

Case Title: Kamya Buch v. JIX5A & Ors.

Judgment Date: July 18, 2025

Bench: Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav