The Delhi High Court granted interim relief to senior journalist Sudhir Chaudhary against the misuse of his name, image, and voice on social media platforms.
The relief was granted in response to a petition for urgent relief, highlighting the growing threat of artificial intelligence being used to create videos and audios that manipulate his personality without consent.
The Bench comprising Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora ordered the takedown of misleading and AI-generated deepfake videos circulating online until the next date of hearing.
The plaintiff’s counsel submitted that additional links and an affidavit of the plaintiff will be e-filed by 20 October, urging the court to extend the injunction to the new links. The Court directed the plaintiff to serve a copy of the order to the relevant YouTube channels named as parties in his petition.
Counsels for Meta and Google informed the court that the communication information of some uploaders was available on their pages, and the plaintiff can directly contact them.
The court, after hearing submissions, directed the plaintiff to email the defendants, along with Google and Meta marked in the email, instructing them to take down the problematic content within 48 hours. The Court outlined the process as follows: “They (plaintiffs) will first write to the uploaders and mark it to you. The uploaders will have 48 hours to remove it. If they don’t, then Google and Meta will take action within 48 hours.”
The Court also issued summons in the main suit, directing the plaintiff to file an amended memo of parties after receiving Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) details for those defendants whose identities remain unknown. However, the court did not issue summons to Meta and Google, as they are not contesting parties in this matter.