Delhi High Court decrees a permanent injunction over AI deepfakes of surgeon Devi Prasad Shetty

A single bench of the Delhi High Court, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, has decreed a commercial suit brought by Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, a cardiac surgeon and founding chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya Limited, together with the company, in a case reported under neutral citation 2026:DHC:8897. The suit concerned fabricated audio-visual content circulated on Facebook and YouTube that used his name, image, voice and likeness, allegedly produced with AI and deepfake tools. According to the report, one video showed him promoting a drug said to cure Type II diabetes, another attributed to him the formulation of a blood pressure drug, and other clips added voice-overs to footage from his earlier interviews. Some content also carried the company's registered marks. The judgment records that a member of the public emailed to ask whether one video was authentic and said they were interested in trying the medication.

An ex parte interim injunction had been granted in November 2024, restraining misuse of his persona through AI, deepfakes or other means, directing Meta and Google to remove specified content and disclose uploader details, and directing the Department of Telecommunications and MeitY to issue blocking directions. The final judgment made that order absolute and decreed a permanent injunction against the content creators and unidentified defendants. The court provided that the plaintiffs may notify Meta and Google of newly discovered content with particulars and an affidavit, that the platforms must assess such requests under their own policies, and that the plaintiffs may return to court if the platforms do not act. Damages and costs were not pressed and were dismissed, and the court declined to declare the company's marks well-known, reserving that prayer. On the evidence the court observed that "the material is, by and large, self-speaking" and that the videos "attribute to him statements which he never made."

Why it matters for digital humans: Most of the personality-rights rulings coming out of the Indian courts this year have involved film and television celebrities. This one involves a doctor, and the harm the court identified runs past reputation into public health — people were being induced to try medication on the strength of a synthetic endorsement. For anyone building avatar or cloning products, the practical reading is that the class of protected likeness is wider than famous faces, and that the remedy being shaped here is an ongoing notice-and-takedown relationship with the platforms rather than a one-off order. The notified-content mechanism, where platforms assess fresh takedown requests under their own policies with the court held in reserve, is the part worth watching: it puts the compliance burden on platform policy rather than on repeated litigation.