The Delhi High Court has protected the personality rights of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and ordered X to remove a fake AI-generated video purporting to show him praising Pakistan’s diplomacy.
Justice Mini Pushkarna, in an interim order passed on Tharoor’s suit, also prohibited the misappropriation of the Thiruvananthapuram MP’s name, image, distinct voice, “signature speaking cadence and manner of speaking”, “highly refined vocabulary” and other aspects of his personality to create and publish any in-depth, commercial, political or malicious videos, any audio, commercial, morphological or harmful videos of the Thiruvananthapuram MP. on any physical or virtual medium.
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The court also asked Meta to ensure that some of the problematic Instagram reels it had made unavailable would remain so.
Tharoor had earlier challenged the court’s repeated posting of deeply fake videos purportedly showing his “politically sensitive” statements. His senior lawyer argued that such content not only damaged his reputation but also affected India’s international standing.
In a preliminary order, Justice Pushkarna said that Tharoor is a “respected and respected public figure” who has “sole control” over the exploitation of his personality and the misuse of any attribute of his personality without his express permission and any consequential damage to his reputation can be limited.
“It is no longer res intergra that personality rights/rights of publicity are protected under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950. The plaintiff’s reputation, goodwill, name, physical appearance/image/likeness, voice, manners, styles, signature oratorical style and other attributes are uniquely identifiable and associated with the same person of the plaintiff which constitute the sole person of the plaintiff. control,” the court said.
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“Defendants #1 (Ashok Kumar /John Doe) are restrained from reproducing, misappropriating or imitating any aspect of the plaintiff’s person including but not limited to his (i) name, (ii) visual likeness and image, (iii) distinct voice, (iv) signature oratorical cadence and manner of speaking, highly refined speaking and refinement (pronunciation) any synthetic media, deepfakes, voice cloned audio or morphed videos using AI, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning or any other technology for any commercial, political or malicious purposes on any physical or virtual medium, Defendant No. 2 is hereby ordered to immediately remove and block access to the following link available on its ‘X’ platform.
The court clarified that in case of other “fake, bogus and infringing videos”, Tharoor will have the option to approach the social media platforms to take them down.
It also asked the social media platforms to provide Tharoor with the full identity, registration details, basic subscriber information, IP credentials, phone numbers and email addresses of the uploaders, creators and registrants of the infringing accounts within three weeks.
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In the suit, Tharoor said that in or around March 2026, he discovered a “sophisticated, insidious campaign orchestrated by unknown intruders” across social media platforms that maliciously portrayed him as making politically sensitive statements praising Pakistan.
Tharoor was represented by senior advocate Amit Sibal and law firm Trilegal.
The suit alleged that the unauthorized cloning and exploitation of Tharoor’s likeness, voice and mannerisms violated his personality and rights of publicity and also constituted a serious violation of his right to privacy.
“These infringers have weaponized artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to generate hyper-realistic audiovisual deepfakes by cloning the plaintiff’s face, voice, vocabulary and demeanor. These fabricated videos maliciously depict the plaintiff making politically sensitive statements he never made,” the lawsuit states.
“Crucially, the plaintiff actively campaigned for the Kerala Legislative Assembly elections in March and early April 2026 – the disinformation campaign was particularly damaging. It was a deliberate attempt to tarnish his patriotic credit, manipulate public perception and unlawfully interfere with the democratic electoral process,” it added.
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Several public figures such as actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Salman Khan, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, podcaster Raj Shamani and Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan have earlier approached the Supreme Court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights. The High Court granted them an injunction.
The Supreme Court also recently granted interim protection to the personality rights of cricketer Gautam Gambhir and actors Sonakshi Sinha, Vivek Oberoi and Allu Arjun.
