Delhi HC issues interim order to curb misuse of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s persona

New Delhi, Oct 1 The Delhi High Court has granted an ad-interim injunction in favour of spiritual leader and Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, restraining unknown entities from unauthorised use of his name, image, likeness, voice, and other personality attributes through deepfakes and AI tools.

A single-judge Bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, while hearing a suit filed by Ravi Shankar against unidentified defendants, observed that the circulation of fabricated videos depicting the plaintiff as endorsing alleged Ayurvedic or natural remedies for serious ailments like diabetes, haemorrhoids, and chronic pain amounted to misappropriation of personality and publicity rights.

The Delhi High Court noted that Ravi Shankar, widely recognised as “Gurudev” and “Sri Sri”, has an established reputation as a humanitarian leader and ambassador of peace, whose persona carries immense goodwill and commercial value. The plaintiff's legal team argued that deepfake videos not only deceive the public but also erode trust and cause irreparable damage to his dignity and reputation.

While issuing the interim order, the Delhi High Court observed, “It is evident that John Doe (unknown party) is circulating deep fake contents unauthorizedly using the name, voice, facial expressions, persona and likeness of the plaintiff. In view of the above, a prima facie case is made out in favour of the plaintiff.”

“Balance of convenience is also in favour of the plaintiff, and irreparable harm will be caused to the plaintiff, if John Doe is not restrained to publish/circulate the deepfake contents,” it added.

Justice Arora restrained John Doe and all associated persons from misusing the plaintiff’s personality attributes, including his name, voice, image, likeness, and manner of discourse, in any form, as well as AI-generated or deepfake content.

Social media platform Facebook was ordered to remove/disable access within 36 hours to the URLs and accounts specified in the suit, and comply with future takedown requests by the plaintiff regarding similar infringing content.

Further, Domain Name Registrars were directed to lock and suspend specified infringing domains within 72 hours and disclose registrant details and IP addresses in compliance affidavits.

The Delhi High Court also asked the Ministry of Electronics and IT and the Department of Telecommunications to issue necessary notifications to ensure the blocking of the infringing websites. The matter has been listed before the Joint Registrar on October 15 and before the Delhi High Court on February 19, 2026.

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