Delhi High Court Closes TV Today's Plea Against Misuse Of Deepfake, Asks It To Give Suggestions To Centre's Committee

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday disposed of a petition filed by TV Today, which owns Aaj Tak and India Today news channels, highlighting the misuse of deepfake.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela asked TV Today to give its suggestions to the Committee of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITy), which is examining the issue of deepfakes.

The Court noted that the issue is already under consideration of the Committee and is also engaging Court's attention in a pending batch of petitions coming up for hearing on July 23.

“…. We direct that if the petitioner has any suggestions to give, the same may be forwarded to the Committee within 10 days from today,” the Court said.

It added that the suggestions of TV Today shall be duly considered by the Committee while formulating the policy on regulating deepfakes.

“In order to avoid multiplicity of litigation on the same issue, we have disposed of the petition with the directions. However, we grant liberty to the petitioner to seek impleadment in the pending petitions, if any such need arises,” the Court said.

TV Today sought a direction on the Union Government to frame a comprehensive mechanism under the IT Act or otherwise to check the misuse of deepfakes and for providing penal actions as well.

In November last year, the Court, after noting that the government has constituted the Committee, acknowledged that the delay in detection of deepfakes is causing hardships to the public at large.

It had directed that the Committee shall examine the suggestions of the petitioners before the Court.

On March 24, a status report was submitted by Meity informing that two meetings have been held by the Committee.

The bench had then recorded Centre's statement that the Committee needs to deliberate on the issue further and accordingly, three months' time was granted to the Committee.

Mr. Asheesh Jain, Sr. Advocate and Mr. Shahrukh Ejaz represented the Petitioner.

Title: TV Today v. Union of India

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 523