Author: Samrudhi Mohapatra
College: SOA National Institute of Law
Abstract
The legal void pertaining to deepfake pornography in India is examined in this article, along with the judicial innovations that have partially filled it. Victims rely on a hodgepodge of personality rights, privacy jurisprudence, intermediary standards, and general criminal legislation relating to obscenity and defamation in the lack of a stand-alone deepfake statute. High courts, especially in Delhi, have issued John Doe judgments and fast ex parte injunctions ordering platforms to remove explicit synthetic content and reveal the identity of uploaders, viewing such content as a direct assault on dignity under Article 21. However, these remedies are primarily reactive, costly, and reliant on the victim’s capacity to immediately contact a court, leaving regular, non-celebrity victims relatively unprotected. In order to make protection meaningful rather than accidental, the essay examines key case law, lists the doctrinal tools courts have employed, and makes the case that a specific legislative framework covering criminalization, quick platform-level removal, and victim anonymity is required.
To the Point
One person’s face may now be unsettlingly realistically grafted onto another’s body in a video or photo thanks to artificial intelligence, and this power is increasingly being used as a weapon to produce non-consensual sexual imagery. Although deepfake pornography deprives victims—mostly women of control over their own image and dignity, there is no specific law in India that identifies the crime. Therefore, even while statutory loopholes make detection, attribution, and cross-border removal exceedingly challenging, courts have stretched provisions from the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and constitutional privacy jurisprudence to create interim remedy.
Use of Legal Jargon
• Personality Rights: The legal acknowledgement that an individual’s name, voice, image, and likeness are their property and cannot be used maliciously or for profit without permission.
• John Doe Order (Ashok Kumar Order): When the producers of deepfake content cannot be located, an injunction is frequently imposed against nameless or unknown defendants.
• Intermediary Liability: Under the safe-harbor framework of Section 79 of the IT Act, platforms like social media corporations are legally obligated to remove illegal content after being warned.
• Ex Parte Injunction: Usually used for urgent emergency relief before the accused can be found, this temporary court order is granted without hearing the other side.
• Right to Privacy: According to the ruling in K.S. Puttaswamyv. Union of India, this basic right under Article 21 of the Constitution encompasses both bodily and informational privacy.
• Obscenity and Image-Based Abuse: Sections 66E and 67 of the IT Act contain statutory categories that make it illegal to take, publish, or transmit someone else’s private image without that person’s consent.
The Proof
Before 2023, deepfake-related litigation in India was essentially nonexistent, according to judicial data gathered by legal researchers. Since then, the Delhi High Court has emerged as the preferred forum, followed by the Bombay and Madras High Courts. Additionally, studies show that although women make up a small percentage of celebrity petitioners who go to court, they are still the most common and severely impacted victims of sexually explicit deepfakes, and non-celebrity women in particular are underrepresented in litigation due to the stigma, expense, and difficulty of tracking down anonymous creators. In response, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has proposed changes to the IT Rules, 2021 that would require platforms to identify synthetic content and respond quickly to takedown requests. This is an executive level recognition that the current framework is insufficient given the extent of the harm.
Case Laws
1. Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India & Ors. (Delhi High Court, 2023)
The court concluded that unapproved use of an individual’s persona breaches both privacy and personality rights under the Constitution and acknowledged personality rights as a protectable legal interest. The actor was consequently given an ex parte order that forbade the unapproved use of his voice, image, and likeness using deepfakes and AI techniques.
2. Arijit Singh v. Codible Ventures LLP
By ruling that making such synthesis tools publicly available violated personality rights, the court barred AI platforms from providing tools that could transform any voice into the singer’s voice without consent, extending protection to the enabling technology as well as completed deepfake content.
3. X v. JIX5A & Ors. (Delhi High Court, 2025)
The court ordered the immediate removal of AI-generated pornographic photographs and films that falsely depicted a female influencer, establishing an important precedent for anonymizing victims of sexual deepfakes. The judge condemned the content as heinous and defamatory, and ordered that her identify be concealed in all court documents.
4. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan & Anr. v. Aishwaryaworld.com & Ors. (Delhi High Court, September 2025)
The court concluded that the actress’s personality and publicity rights were breached by the unlawful artificial modification of her name, image, and likeness, emphasizing that courts will not ignore AI-enabled exploitation even if there is no single comprehensive deepfake regulation.
5. Rajat Sharma & Anr. v. Tamara doc & Ors. (Delhi High Court, November 2025)
The court showed its dissatisfaction with the burden litigation placed on victims by condemning the practice of forcing individual victims to file lawsuits for each new occurrence of deepfake content, stressing that intermediaries should act immediately once they are aware that the content is a deepfake. It also directed the concerned platform to remove reported content within 48 hours.
6. Ankur Warikoo & Anr. v. John Doe & Ors. (Delhi High Court, 2025)
Though the case was primarily about financial fraud, the court’s willingness to issue a John Doe order against unidentified creators of deepfake videos, along with a directive to the platform to disclose user information within 36 hours, has since been cited as a model for urgent relief in deepfake pornography cases.
Conclusion
Using personality rights, the constitutional right to privacy, and intermediary takedown obligations, the Indian judiciary has, case by case, developed a working vocabulary for dealing with deepfake pornography. However, this is essentially a compensatory response to a legislative gap rather than a planned system of protection. While ordinary victims, who make up the vast bulk of those damaged, frequently lack the resources or awareness to promptly activate these remedies, relief is nevertheless concentrated among those who can afford immediate litigation, primarily public personalities. Today’s ad hoc judicial relief would become a predictable and accessible right with a specific legislative framework that criminalizes the production and distribution of non-consensual synthetic sexual imagery, requires time-bound platform takedown regardless of the victim’s public profile, and ensures anonymity throughout proceedings. In the era of artificial intelligence, courts will continue to be the major, if flawed, defenders of victims’ dignity until such legislation is passed.
FAQs
Q1. Is deepfake pornography a specific criminal offence in India?
Prosecutors and courts depend on Sections 66E and 67 of the IT Act (privacy breach and obscenity), pertinent provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and civil remedies like personality rights and defamation instead of using the word “deepfake” in a standalone provision.
Q2. What can a victim do immediately after discovering deepfake content?
As demonstrated in previous Delhi High Court instances, victims can concurrently request an immediate injunction and takedown order from a High Court, submit a complaint with the platform’s grievance officer, and report the content to the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal.
Q3. Are social media platforms legally required to remove deepfake content?
In order to maintain safe-harbor protection under Section 79 of the IT Act, intermediaries are required by the IT Rules, 2021 to take action upon being alerted of illicit content; courts have increasingly mandated removal within 36 to 48 hours after notice.
Q4. Can a victim’s identity be protected during litigation?
Indeed. As acknowledged in the influencer deepfake case before the Delhi High Court, courts have allowed victims to continue without revealing their identities in public records.
Q5. Is legislative reform underway in India?
A more comprehensive Digital India Act is being considered to completely replace the IT Act, and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has suggested changes to the IT Rules, 2021 that would require labelling of AI-generated material and more stringent platform duties.
