Supreme Court stays Gujarat HC case on AI deepfakes after Centre seeks transfer of matter to SC

The Supreme Court has stayed the proceedings before the Gujarat High Court in a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking a regulatory framework against Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated deepfake content.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana also issued notice on a petition filed by the Union government seeking to transfer the matter from Gujarat High Court to Supreme Court.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Union government along with advocates Zoheb Hossain, Annam Venkatesh, Bhuvan Kapoor, Gaurang Bhushan and Madhulika Upadhyay.

During the hearing, Hossain submitted that the Court had already interdicted similar proceedings pending before other High Courts, and that those cases were now before the Supreme Court.

The Bench issued notice on the transfer petition, returnable on October 5. It also directed that further proceedings in the Gujarat High Court PIL shall remain stayed in the meantime.

The PIL before the High Court was filed by one Vikas Vijay Nair who sought the formation of a robust regulatory framework to curb misuse of AI and deal with the creation and circulation of AI-generated deepfake videos and photographs, particularly those targeting constitutional and statutory authorities.

In April this year, the High Court had directed major social media intermediaries including Meta India, Google, X, Reddit and Scribd to file their responses to the plea.

Similar petitions raising concerns over deepfake and AI-generated content are pending before the Karnataka and Bombay High Courts, filed by parties including X Corp, DigiPub News Foundation, Kunal Kamra and Senior Advocate Haresh Jagtiani.

[Read Order]