The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted interim relief to Bollywood actor Ananya Panday in her suit seeking the protection of her personality and privacy rights [Ananya Panday v. Fankaar Live Experiences Pvt. Ltd. & Ors.].

The order passed by Justice Madhav Jamdar addresses widespread unauthorised commercial exploitation and digital manipulation of her name and image.

The ex-parte order directs various defendants, including e-commerce giants, and social media platforms, to immediately halt the rampant misuse of the actor’s name, image, likeness, voice, and signature.

Panday’s plea flagged unauthorised merchandise sales, false representations by talent agencies claiming authority to facilitate her professional bookings, and the unlawful circulation of deepfakes. 

Furthermore, it raised concerns over AI-enabled chatbots actively impersonating Panday, alongside the dissemination of digitally manipulated, highly offensive, and sexually explicit content across various digital platforms like Meta, X Corp, and Reddit.

In the interim order passed today, Justice Jamdar has restrained various entities from exploiting Panday's personality attributes or passing off goods and services as being endorsed by her. 

The Court directed major e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart to remove unauthorized product listings. It also ordered social media intermediaries to take down offensive deepfakes and pornographic material. 

Domain registrars and government authorities were also instructed to block websites hosting the fake AI chatbots and illicit content. 

The court additionally ordered the immediate destruction of all unauthorised physical merchandise.

Panday was represented by advocate Astad Randeria who was briefed by a team from Khimani & Associates led by Priyanka Khimani, along with senior associate Aadya Saggurthi, associate Rajvi Zala, and Astad Randeria.