The recent legal actions taken by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. AishwaryaWorld.com and Ors,2025 SCC OnLine Del 5943), Abhishek Bachchan (Abhishek Bachchan v Bollywood Tee Shop, 2025 SCC OnLine Del 5944), Ankur Warikoo (Ankur Warikoo v John Doe, 2025 SCC OnLine Del 3727) and Dr Naresh Trehan (Global Health Ltd. & Anr v John Doe & Ors, CS(COMM) 6/2025) before the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi have rightly thrust the discourse on personality rights into the national spotlight. For years, the concept lingered in our courtrooms, occasionally invoked, but rarely understood in its full constitutional and societal dimension. The alarming rise of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)and Deepfake technology has now brought it to a rolling boil. What was once a niche concern for the famous has become an urgent, universal threat to the dignity and identity of every citizen. The time for ad hoc, celebrity-driven solutions is over. We are in dire need of a robust legal framework that protects all, not just a privileged few. However, this call for protection is not a plea for censorship. Any new framework must be carefully calibrated to exist within our constitutional protections for free speech, ensuring that the right to dignity does not unjustly silence the right to critique, comment, or lampoon.
In India, the protection of personality rights has not emerged from a dedicated statute. It has been judicially crafted, brick by brick, with the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi leading the way. The journey began with the decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Rajagopal v State of Tamil Nadu (1994) 6 SCC 632, which recognised the right to privacy and control over the commercial exploitation of one’s identity. This foundation was built upon in cases like DM Entertainment (P) Ltd v Baby Gift House, 2010 SCC OnLine Del 4790, where the unauthorised creation of dolls resembling singer Daler Mehndi was deemed an infringement of his publicity rights. Landmark orders in favour of titans like Amitabh Bachchan, who secured a pioneering John Doe order to protect his persona against the world at large (Amitabh Bachchan v Rajat Nagi, (2022) 6 HCC (Del) 641), and Anil Kapoor, where the court expanded the scope of personality to include voice, image, gestures, and even dialogue delivery (Anil Kapoor v Simply Life India and Ors, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 6914), have been monumental.
These judgments protect individuals whose personality already possesses immense goodwill and commercial value. In this context, it is only appropriate to closely examine who qualifies as a celebrity in such cases. The Hon’ble High Court of Delhi, in Titan Industries Ltd v Ramkumar Jewellers, 2012 SCC OnLine Del 2382, observed: “A celebrity is defined as a famous or a well-known person. A ‘celebrity’ is merely a person who ‘many’ people talk about or know about.” This patchwork in law, while effective for them, underscores the broader challenge of addressing deepfake misuse against the general public.
The Information Technology Act, 2000, offers avenues to tackle deepfake misuse through provisions penalising identity theft (Section 66C), cheating by personation (Section 66D), violation of privacy (Section 66E), and the publication of obscene or sexually explicit material (Sections 67 and 67A). However, these provisions are fundamentally reactive, designed to punish specific cybercrimes after the harm has already spread virally. They lack the specific focus to address the novel challenges of AI-generated media, such as the rapid reputational damage caused by non-obscene yet highly misleading or defamatory deepfakes.
The most common recourse is through the principles of trademark law. When a celebrity’s name attains a unique character exclusively associated with them, any unauthorised third-party use is likely to cause public confusion regarding association or endorsement. The courts have consistently held that a celebrity’s persona is a marketable commodity, and unauthorised use thatsuggests an affiliation amounts to passing off.
The Copyright Act, 1957, provides another powerful tool, specifically through the lens of performers’ moral rights. Sections 38, 38A, and 38B grant performers special protections, including the Right of Integrity, which empowers a performer to restrain any distortionof their performance that would be prejudicial to their reputation. In the context of deepfakes, an AI-generated video that places an actor in a defamatory or explicit context can be argued as a gross distortion of their persona, thereby maligning their reputation.
Beyond commercial laws, the courts have grounded personality rights in our Constitution itself. In Anil Kapoor v Simply Life India and Ors, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 6914, the Hon’ble High Court at Delhi explicitly linked the misuse of his persona to a violation of Article 21, interpreting Right to Life and Personal Liberty to include the right to dignity and reputation. It was further noted that theFreedom of Speech and Expression under Article 19(1)(a) implicitly includes the right “not” to endorse.
This impressive legal arsenal, however, is riddled with holes for a commoner. Practical hurdles like the anonymity of perpetrators and the prohibitive cost of litigation place justice far beyond the reach of the average Indian. This disparity cannot, and must not, be allowed to persist. The true essence of the right is far broader than its current application; it is the inherent right of every individual to control their own identity, image, voice, and likeness.
The case of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is particularly instructive. Her suit specifically sought protection against AI-generated deepfake videos that superimposed her face onto sexually explicit content. She was able to secure an injunction because the system is designed to respond to such high-profile violations. The reasons for approaching Delhi High Court are strategic: this High Court has developed a mature jurisprudence on the subject. It has been willing to grant swift, pan-India injunctions crucial for tackling viral online content.
The location is practical for enforcing orders against tech giants with legal offices in the capital. Notably, the Hon’ble High Court of Bombay has also begun engaging with these questions, although the relief granted was narrower and interim in nature(Arijit Singh v Codible Ventures LLP, 2024 SCC OnLine Bom 2445). However, we cannot expect every citizen victimised by a deepfake to have the resources or ability to seek justice in one or two courts. The solution must be decentralised, accessible, and codified into law.
Nations across the globe are grappling with this very issue. Denmark is proposing Danish Copyright Act (Amendment on Protection of Personal Likeness), 2025to grant individuals exclusive rights over their own body, facial features, and voice. This protection would extend 50 years post-mortem, allow victims to demand takedowns and compensation, and impose severe fines on non-compliant platforms. Italy, the first EU nation with a comprehensive AI law, the Italian Artificial Intelligence Act, 2025, has introduced stringent criminal penalties for harmful AI-generated content, including deepfakes, with prison terms ranging from one to five years.
The EU Artificial Intelligence Act, 2025 mandates that AI-generated content be clearly labelled or tagged, empowering users to distinguish between authentic and synthetic media. Hence, a combination of a rights-based legal foundation, strong criminal deterrents, and mandatory platform transparency is essential.
When the power to digitally replicate and manipulate a person’s identity is available at the click of a button, the law must be swift and decisive in its response. A promising new legal path has emerged in India with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023. This lawgrants every individual the right to control how their digital personal data, including their image and voice, is processed.
While a person’s public photo may be viewable, this does not constitute consent for its use in a deepfake, which is a new form of processing for a different, often malicious, purpose. This allows any person to file a complaint with the Data Protection Board of India, shifting the legal focus from a celebrity’s commercial harm to a universal “violation of data rights.”
The potential of the deepfake technology for harm is immense, from manipulating voter behaviour to inflicting irreparable psychological trauma. To protect the personality rights of every Indian in this new digital reality, we must move beyond judicial interpretation and enact a standalone law or amend the Information Technology Act, 2000, to explicitly grant every citizen a Right to Personality. This right must be defined broadly to include their name, image, likeness, voice, and other unique attributes, and it must be a universal right, untethered from fame or commercial value. We must introduce stringent criminal penalties, borrowing from Italy’s model, for the creation and dissemination of malicious deepfakes intended to harass, defame, extort, or create non-consensual pornography. Crucially, this legal framework must incorporate clear safe harbours for freedom of speech.
There must be explicit exemptions for parody, satire, caricature, artistic expression, and legitimate news commentary. The Lakshman Rekha must be drawn to protect individuals from targeted harm without censoring constitutionally protected speech. Platforms must be held accountable through a mandatory and time-bound notice and takedown mechanism. All synthetic media published online must be clearly labelled as such. A specialised, fast-track tribunal or a digital ombudsman should be established to handle complaints of personality rights violations.
The rise of deepfake technology represents an inflection point for our society and our laws. We stand at a crossroads where we can either allow this powerful tool to become a weapon for eroding trust and violating human dignity, or we can proactively build the legal guardrails to ensure it is used responsibly. The challenge is formidable, but the mandate is clear: we must forge a new legal consensus that safeguards the most fundamental thing a person has, their own identity. The digital doppelgänger is already here. Our laws must not be left behind.
Writer is a Senior Advocate and President of the Supreme Court Bar Association