Bombay High Court: In an application filed by Applicant—Plaintiff, Ms. Shilpa Shetty Kundra, seeking urgent ad-interim and interim reliefs for protection of her personality rights, privacy, dignity, and reputation, a Single-Judge bench of Advait M. Sethna, J., without delving into the merits of the matter, including the aspect of personality rights, grants urgent interim relief to restrain and remove AI-generated deepfake content infringing the applicant’s privacy, dignity, and reputation.
The Applicant is a reputed and acclaimed actress, television personality, health and fitness enthusiast, and a well-known public figure, having acted in over fifty Bollywood films and several television shows, with a substantial social media following of approximately 3.34 crore followers on Instagram.
The grievance arose from the Applicant’s discovery that “unknown and unscrupulous persons” had, without her consent, authority, or licence, used her photographs and visual depictions to generate and circulate obscene and sexually explicit content using artificial intelligence. The content, described as “deepfakes, face morphing and/or GIFs,” purported to depict the Applicant and was circulated across multiple online platforms.
It was asserted that the exploitation was continuous and ongoing, with new obscene deepfake images being created and circulated daily, thereby compounding the harm. The Applicant contended that the continued spread of such material gravely tarnished her reputation and inflicted irreparable damage to the esteem in which she is held by the public and the industry.
It was further contended that the impugned content violated her fundamental right to privacy and right to live with dignity guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. It was argued that the misuse of her likeness without consent also infringed her moral rights under the Copyright Act, 1957.
At the interim stage, the principal issue before the Court was whether a prima facie case was made out for grant of urgent interim relief to restrain and remove AI-generated deepfake content infringing the Applicant’s privacy, dignity, and reputation.
Upon perusal of the material placed on record, the Court noted that the photos and images tendered by the Applicant “prima facie infringe upon her likeness, image, persona, without her consent” and appeared to be deepfakes generated using artificial intelligence. The Court observed that such content would, prima facie, tarnish her public image and reputation and “ought to be deprecated.”
The Court categorically held that, even without entering into the nuances of personality rights under the Copyright Act, no person, “much less a woman,” can be portrayed in a fashion which affects their fundamental right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. The right to live with dignity, the Court observed, “cannot be compromised in any manner whatsoever.”
Emphasising the gendered impact of such violations, the Court observed that courts have treated personality rights “as a shield for women against privacy violations especially in the context of digital malignment and AI generated content.” It was further observed that “to reconstruct a person’s identity without consent is a violation of their digital personhood,” which, prima facie, appeared to be the situation in the present case.
The Court strongly deprecated the misuse of artificial intelligence and stated that while AI and technology are a boon for efficient implementation of law, they cannot be permitted to become a handle for misuse.
“A person’s much less a woman’s dignity cannot be publicly maligned or defamed that too without consent which is the sine qua non for such publications.”
In the interest of justice, the Court granted interim reliefs and issued the following directions —
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Directed all defendants to delete the infringing URLs, the list of which had been furnished to them, from their respective platforms and websites forthwith and no later than the uploading of the order on the Court’s website.
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Directed Defendant 26 and 27, namely the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), to pull down all links, posts, and websites which unlawfully infringed the privacy rights of the Applicant.
The Court clarified that the observations were prima facie in nature and that it had not delved into the merits of the matter, including the aspect of personality rights, which were expressly kept open for adjudication before the regular Court.
[Shilpa Shetty Kundra v. Getoutlive.in, 2025 SCC OnLine Bom 5486, Decided on 26-12-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
Ms. Sana Khan a/w Rashmi Raghavan, Counsel for the Applicant
Mr. N. Pathak (through VC) i/by Sai Krishna & Associates, Counsel for the Defendant No. 3
Ms. Amishi Sodani (through VC) i/by Charu Shukla, Counsel for the Respondent No. 15 and 24
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