Preity Zinta Seeks Court Orders to Remove AI Deepfakes

Actor-producer Preity Zinta is pursuing a civil suit in the Bombay High Court against Google, Meta, X Corp, domain-name registrars and identified infringers over AI-generated deepfake videos, morphed images and chatbot-style personas using her likeness, according to Bar and Bench and Free Press Journal. At a July 3, 2026 hearing, Justice Madhav Jamdar said Zinta had made out a case for protective relief and directed all parties to confer on a practical mechanism to remove genuinely infringing material while leaving lawful content undisturbed; he indicated he would pass orders on July 6. Senior advocate Venkatesh Dhond, appearing for Zinta, sought urgent ex parte takedown directions, John Doe orders against unidentified infringers, and a broader injunction against creating or publishing unauthorized AI-generated content featuring her. Counsel for Google and Meta told the court they would remove specific URLs the plaintiff identifies but opposed any blanket, proactive-monitoring order, arguing some flagged URLs did not actually contain infringing content; a domain registrar said its role is limited to registration and it has no control over hosted content.

Per ThePrint's interviews with practicing lawyers, the case is legally broader than earlier Indian personality-rights suits: it combines personality rights, copyright, moral rights, goodwill and intermediary-liability claims in one matter, and treats platforms as active participants rather than proforma defendants. The suit follows a June 16, 2026 order by Justice Abhay Ahuja granting Zinta leave to file under the Bombay High Court's Clause XII original civil jurisdiction, since the alleged harm and several respondents span multiple jurisdictions. Separately, India's IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026, notified in February 2026, already require intermediaries to label AI-generated synthetic content and act on takedown requests within a few hours per LiveLaw's coverage of the rules; this litigation effectively tests whether that framework holds up in practice.

Teams should watch the specific mechanics of any July 6 order: courts asking for a jointly engineered takedown protocol commonly push toward URL-level removal queues, provenance and traceability metadata, and prioritized human review over blanket automated takedowns, which map onto real moderation-pipeline design choices rather than policy language alone.

The July 6 order itself, and whether it prescribes specific technical steps or timelines for intermediaries; whether the case's treatment of chatbot personas as a distinct harm category influences how other courts frame deepfake-related personality-rights claims; and whether platforms' compliance posture under the 2026 IT Amendment Rules becomes a live issue as the suit proceeds.

1. June 16, 2026

   Justice Abhay Ahuja grants Zinta leave to sue Google, Meta, X Corp and other respondents under the Bombay High Court's original civil jurisdiction.

2. July 3, 2026

   Justice Madhav Jamdar says Zinta has made a case for protective relief and directs parties to devise a takedown protocol.

3. July 6, 2026

   Court expected to pass orders on the takedown mechanism, per Bar and Bench and Free Press Journal reporting.