Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka on Thursday agreed before the Delhi High Court to take down AI-generated social media posts targeting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Senior Advocate Gaurav Bhatia.
Justice Tushar Rao Gedela recorded the undertaking given by the two defendants during the hearing of Bhatia’s defamation suit seeking ₹2 crore in damages and an injunction against the CJP and its leaders.
“Counsel for D1 (Saurav Das) says the impugned tweets will be taken down today. Counsel for D2 (Ranka) states that his tweet will also be taken down today itself,” the Court noted in its order.
The Court also permitted Bhatia to approach social media platforms Meta and X directly if Das or Ranka publish identical posts in future. The platforms have been directed to consider such complaints and take appropriate action.
The dispute arose after an AI-generated graphic falsely attributed remarks about Swatantra Bhardwaj to Bhatia. Bhardwaj has been accused of assaulting the father of CJP activist Nishu Azad.
The graphic claimed that Bhatia had described Bhardwaj as a dimagi naxal. Das shared the graphic on X, following which Bhatia denied making the remarks and gave him 24 hours to delete the post and issue an unconditional apology.
Das subsequently deleted the post and clarified on X that the graphic was AI-generated. However, he questioned Bhatia over whether he disagreed with the AI-generated statement. CJP co-convener Ranka allegedly amplified the controversy by reposting the graphic from Das’s account with a caption mocking BJP leaders.
During Thursday’s hearing, the Court urged Das and Ranka to voluntarily remove the posts instead of forcing them to do so through a judicial order.
“There are different ways of protesting. Do you really need to go to this? You are youngsters. You have your anxiety. That's understandable but saying something like this or putting something like this may not be correct,” Justice Gedela said.
The judge added that the Court did not want to pass an order compelling them to remove the posts if they were willing to do so themselves.
The Court also sought to de-escalate the dispute, telling Bhatia that there were other ways of dealing with criticism and social media posts. “We want to make sure there is no acrimony on this issue. We are not imputing anything against anyone right now,” the judge said.
The Court noted that CJP founder Abhijit Dipke had not himself put out any post against Bhatia. Although the Court initially indicated that it would not proceed against Dipke, it eventually issued a summons to him as well as Das and Ranka in the defamation proceedings.
The three defendants have been directed to file their responses to Bhatia’s suit.
After the summons was issued, Bhatia sought a dynamic injunction to prevent the defendants from continuing to publish similar content. The Court, however, declined to grant such relief at this stage, observing that the matter was not an intellectual property dispute and that such an injunction could not be granted without hearing the other side.
Bhatia also complained that Das had posted about him on X while the hearing was underway. He told the Court that the reach of such posts made the issue particularly serious.
“When my lords said they should take it down, they posted a tweet within two minutes. Please understand more than a million, two million people are watching the tweets,” Bhatia said.
The Court, however, pointed out that lampooning and criticism on social media are part of public life, while acknowledging Bhatia’s right to protect his reputation.
“People do lampooning, people do so many things, we take it. You have a right to protect your reputation, we don't doubt that,” the judge observed.
While the Court did not grant the broader dynamic injunction sought by Bhatia, it put in place a mechanism allowing him to approach Meta and X if identical posts are uploaded by the defendants in future.
The case highlights the growing legal complications surrounding AI-generated content, particularly when fabricated statements are attributed to public figures and circulated on social media.
