Delhi High Court Protects Actor Ravi Kishan's Personality Rights; Orders Takedown Of AI-Generated, Obscene Content
The Delhi High Court has passed an interim order protecting the personality rights of actor and BJP MP Ravi Kishan. [2026 LiveLaw (Del) 632]
Justice Jyoti Singh restrained several individuals and online entities from unauthorizedly using his name, image, likeness and other attributes of his persona through artificial intelligence, deepfakes and other technologies.
The Court passed the interim order while dealing with a suit filed by Kishan against multiple defendants, including unidentified persons (john doe), domain registrars and intermediaries such as Meta Platforms and Google LLC.
The Court observed that Ravi Kishan, who has enjoyed a successful acting career spanning over three decades and has also served as a Member of Parliament, possesses enforceable personality rights over attributes such as his name, image, voice and likeness.
“Personality rights are now judicially recognized as also the need to protect them,” the Court empathised.
Justice Singh concluded that Kishan is entitled to complain against any content which violates his personality rights or is vulgar or obscene or has sexually explicit or pornographic content and tarnishes his image, goodwill and reputation in the public and amongst family and friends and seek protection as well as action against the wrongdoers.
According to the suit, Ravi Kishan alleged that various social media accounts had uploaded vulgar and AI-generated videos using his image and voice, falsely portraying him as a political middleman, attributing fabricated political statements to him and mocking his speech.
He also alleged that several websites were using his name in connection with sexually explicit and pornographic content, severely damaging his reputation.
The suit further challenged the unauthorised use of his name and likeness in a radio programme titled “What is Love with Kavi Kishan.”
After examining the material on record, the Court held that the actor and politician had established a prima facie case for grant of an ex parte ad interim injunction. It added that the balance of convenience was in his favour and irreparable harm would be caused in the absence of interim protection.
Accordingly, the Court restrained various defendants, including John Does, from using or exploiting Ravi Kishan's personality rights—including his name, image, likeness and other identifiable attributes, for commercial or personal gain through artificial intelligence.
It also restrained them from posting any vulgar, obscene or pornographic content using his persona.
The Court further directed the concerned domain name registrars to remove the infringing URLs listed in the annexure to the order within three days.
In the event of non-compliance, Kishan has been permitted to notify Meta, Google LLC and X Corp., which have been directed to initiate takedown of the relevant URLs within 72 hours of receiving such intimation.
Title: RAVINDRA SHUKLA ALIAS RAVI KISHAN v. ASHOK KUMAR (JOHN DOE) & ORS
Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Del) 632