Delhi HC Protects Journalist Sudhir Chaudhary’s Personality Rights Against Deepfake Misuse

The Delhi High Court on Friday has passed an order protecting the personality rights of journalist and Editor-in-Chief of DD News, Sudhir Chaudhary, who had approached the court seeking relief against the circulation of AI-generated deepfake videos portraying him on social media platforms.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora granted an injunction protecting Chaudhary’s name, image, likeness, and voice from misuse.

“Injunction granted; we will give it for name, image, likeness and voice of Sudhir Chaudhary,” the Court observed.

While outlining a procedural mechanism for the removal of infringing content, the Court said that it would draft the order in a manner that Chaudhary would first write to the originators of the impugned content and mark a copy to the platforms. The originators would then have 48 hours to remove the material infringing on Chaudhary’s personality rights, failing which Google and Meta would be required to take action.

During the course of proceedings, Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao appeared on behalf of Chaudhary. He submitted that the impugned videos were AI-generated deepfakes and had been circulated without authorization.

“All these are videos that are essentially AI-generated. All of them are unauthorised. These are deepfakes, a few of them attribute statements which I have never made,” Rao told the Court.

The Senior Counsel for the plaintiff further submitted that, subsequent to filing the suit, additional deepfake links had been identified on YouTube and other social-media handles of defendants already impleaded in the case.

“He accordingly prayed that the interim injunction granted earlier be extended to cover these additional links as well. It was further submitted that these newly discovered links have been found on the social media handles of defendants numbered 3 to 15, who are already parties to the present proceeding,” the order recorded.

Issuing further directions, the Court said, “Issue notice to defendants 3 to 15. This application has been filed. Since complete details of these defendants are awaited, upon the plaintiff filing an amended memo of parties, the Registry will issue notice to the said defendants.”

The present order comes amid a series of similar rulings by the Delhi High Court extending protection of personality rights to several public figures, including Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Telugu actor Nagarjuna, and Bollywood celebrities Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Karan Johar.

Case Title: Sudhir Chaudhary v. Meta Platforms & Ors

Bench: Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora

Date: 10 October 2025