Delhi High Court protects Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's personality rights against circulation of deepfakes, AI videos

The Delhi High Court recently passed an order protecting the personality rights of spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar [Ravi Shankar v John Doe(s) / Ashok Kumar(s) & Ors]. 

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora restrained unknown parties (John Doe defendants) from misusing Ravi Shankar’s image, voice, likeness or any other aspect of his persona to create deepfakes or Artificial Intelligence-generated content. 

Irreparable harm will be caused to Ravi Shankar if defendants are not restrained from publishing and circulating such deepfake content, the Court said. 

“Defendant No. 1 [John Doe]… are restrained from infringing the plaintiff’s personality rights and publicity rights by utilizing and/or in any manner directly and/or indirectly using or exploiting or misappropriating the plaintiff’s (a) name ‘Ravi Shankar’ or ‘Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’ (b) voice; (c) image; (d) likeness; (e) unique style of discourse and delivery; and/or (f) any other attribute which is exclusively identifiable with him, for any commercial and/or personal gain and/or otherwise by exploiting them in any manner whatsoever without the plaintiff’s consent and/or authorization,” the Court said in its order of August 26.

The order was passed after Ravi Shankar approached the High Court seeking the blocking of the fabricated content, allegedly created using advanced AI tools. 

He stated that they wrongly depicted him promoting questionable remedies for serious health conditions and falsely attributed scientific research and miraculous cures to him. 

These videos, which appeared between July and August 2025, not only misrepresented his teachings and identity but also risked misleading the public and damaging his well-established reputation, the Court was told. 

He argued that his personality rights, including control over his name, likeness and unique style, were being violated through these unauthorized digital manipulations. 

After considering his arguments, the Court passed the interim injunction order. 

Senior Advocate Nikhil Sakhardande along with Pooja Tidke, Pranav Sarthi, Ashish Venugopal, Apoorva Singh and Prachi Dhingra appeared for Ravi Shankar. 

Advocates Chetanya Puri, Anand Awasthi and Nisha Puri represented defendant numbers 2 and 3. 

Advocates Varun Pathak, Yash Karunakaran and Tanuj Sharma appeared for defendant number 4.

[Read Order]