The Delhi High Court on Friday indicated that it will pass orders to protect the personality rights of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and ensure the removal of deepfake videos circulating on social media that falsely portray him praising Pakistan.
Hearing a civil suit filed by Tharoor, Justice Mini Pushkarna issued summons to the Central government and social media intermediaries—including Meta and X (formerly Twitter). The court made it clear that blocking orders would follow, while directing all respondents to file their replies within four weeks.
The case brings into sharp focus the increasing misuse of artificial intelligence tools to create convincing but fabricated content. Tharoor, in his plea, alleged that a malicious campaign has been orchestrated by unknown entities using AI and machine learning to generate hyper-realistic deepfake videos.
These videos, he said, cloned his face, voice, vocabulary, and mannerisms to make it appear as though he was making statements he never actually made.
According to the suit, some of these manipulated clips depict Tharoor praising Pakistan’s foreign policy as absolute brilliance and claiming that “Pakistan is faring much better diplomatically than India”. The Congress leader has strongly denied making any such remarks.
Tharoor argued that the deepfakes are so realistic that they have misled not just the general public, but also members of the political establishment and even foreign journalists.
This, he said, has escalated the issue into an international embarrassment and caused serious damage to his reputation and credibility.
The plea further stated that the disinformation campaign began while Tharoor was campaigning for the recently concluded Kerala elections.
He described it as a deliberate attempt to tarnish his patriotic image, manipulate public perception, and interfere with the democratic process.
Appearing for Tharoor, Senior Advocate Amit Sibal told the court that despite complaints and fact-checks, the fake videos continue to resurface.
“They keep coming back like the ten heads of Ravana,” he said, underlining the persistent nature of the problem.
He also warned that such content could be misused by foreign governments and may even harm India’s international standing.
Sibal emphasised that the issue goes beyond individual harm.
“They have misappropriated my personality and created these videos praising another country to my detriment. I have been the external affairs minister. It matters to India’s standing as well,” he submitted on behalf of Tharoor.
The counsel for Meta informed the court that action had already been taken on some of the flagged content.
“All the Instagram URLs identified in Schedule 1 are inaccessible. They were taken down this morning,” the counsel said, indicating partial compliance.
The High Court’s intervention comes amid a growing number of cases involving personality rights and the unauthorised use of identity.
In recent years, actors like Anil Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan have approached courts to secure injunctions against the misuse of their name, image, voice, and likeness, particularly in advertisements and AI-generated material.