December 2025 saw India’s courts in New Delhi and Mumbai tackle a new breed of lawsuits: leading Indian cinema celebrities fighting back against unauthorized deepfakes and AI-generated impersonations. Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR Jr.), R. Madhavan, and Shilpa Shetty—all famous Indian actors—filed and won powerful court orders aimed at blocking the spread of synthetic images, audio, and videos mimicking their likeness.
Each celebrity sought emergency relief to block the spread of AI-generated deepfakes, voice clones, and unauthorized digital merchandise. In just weeks, judges in Delhi and Mumbai issued orders in the celebrities’ favor. The cases highlight that AI risks are global, demonstrating how challenges associated with AI move across borders, industries, and platforms.
Generative AI and Deepfake Risks
All three rulings recognize a central truth of today’s AI age: generative tools make it easier than ever to create convincing fakes, replicate a celebrity’s image and voice, or commercialize digital likeness without consent. The lawsuits involved not only obvious impersonations, like fake trailers or synthetic endorsements, but also more harmful attacks, such as nonconsensual obscene deepfakes.
The judges hearing these cases made clear that AI-generated content falls within the rights and remedies for misappropriation, regardless of how the content was created. The scope stretches from commercial uses (like T-shirts, posters, and ads), to noncommercial misuses that cause reputational harm. This approach frames AI risks as an extension of existing legal frameworks, not something immune due to novelty.
Platforms and Intermediaries
Courts in these cases pushed back firmly against hands-off approaches by e-commerce sites, hosts, registrars, and social networks. In the NTR Jr. case, the judge held that once notified, intermediaries must quickly remove AI-driven impersonations, deepfakes, and synthetic content. The judge rejected platform defenses based on being a neutral host. In the Shilpa Shetty case, the judge ordered a swift takedown, mandating “all defendants…to delete the URLs [containing deepfakes]… no later than this order being uploaded” on the court’s website. In the R. Madhavan case, defendant platform companies were further required to produce information, including IP addresses, on the users/accounts behind the alleged illegal activity, reflecting a growing expectation for responsible stewardship of digital risks. The decisions perhaps signal that India’s courts will expect platforms and intermediaries to act swiftly once they become aware of AI-driven impersonation or synthetic media abuse.
Expanding the Meaning of Harm
The courts in these cases recognized both economic and personal harm as a result of AI content. In the Shilpa Shetty case, the judge flagged not only lost endorsement revenue, but also the loss of control over one’s image and the corrosive effects of AI-propelled reputational attacks or “digital malignment,” especially where synthetic, obscene, or defamatory content was created, and particularly for women. He referenced the right to dignity, privacy, and even “digital personhood,” framing AI risks as a question of fundamental privacy rights. Similarly, the court in R. Madhavan’s case noted that misuse of name, image, and likeness not only causes economic and reputational injury, but also undermines the person’s goodwill, societal standing, and psychological well-being. In the NTR Jr. case, the court also found that unauthorized commercial exploitation, whether through merchandise, impersonation, or AI-generated content, can result in irreparable loss to reputation and goodwill, broadening the types of recognized harm.
The rulings suggest that established legal principles in India apply fully to synthetic and AI-generated content, requiring companies to evaluate where reputation and rights intersect with emerging technologies.
What Next?
AI’s global nature means no business or jurisdiction is immune from similar risks. These cases offer takeaways for all organizations grappling with AI:
- AI Supply Chain – Organizations must know what their AI tools can create, where third-party models are deployed, and how synthetic content might travel through their ecosystem.
- Takedown Protocols – Just as with classic intellectual property or privacy issues, companies should implement playbooks for rapid investigation and response to deepfake complaints.
- Platform and Vendor Policies – Terms of service, supplier agreements, and user conduct agreements should prohibit unauthorized AI impersonation and provide for swift intervention.
As the boundaries between personal rights, technology, and reputation blur, organizations everywhere are expected to keep pace as both regulators and courts turn their attention to AI’s power to create, clone, and confuse. Although these rulings are in India, digital identity and reputational risks are global. Organizations should treat these issues as a core component of their AI compliance and governance protocols.