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The Bombay High Court has granted actor Preity Zinta leave to sue Google and 16 other respondents over artificial intelligence (AI) generated deepfake videos, memes, manipulated images and chatbot personas of her circulating online. Justice Abhay Ahuja passed the order on June 16, 2026.
The order is procedural and not a ruling on merits of the case. Zinta’s counsel argued that she is an Indian national who lives and works in Mumbai, and therefore her goodwill, reputation, and persona fall within the court’s jurisdiction. Since the respondents maintain offices outside that jurisdiction and the allegedly infringing content is accessible online worldwide, she required the court’s leave under Clause XII of the Letters Patent to file the suit in Bombay. The court granted the request, clearing the way for the suit to proceed.
What Zinta will argue in the suit:
- Breach of personality rights, which give a person control over the commercial use of their name, face, voice, and likeness.
- Copyright infringement, including violation of her moral rights under Section 62 of the Copyright Act, 1957.
- Loss of goodwill and reputational harm caused by the AI-generated content.
The suit fits a widening pattern of personality rights litigation. Indian courts have protected Anil Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff and Rajat Sharma against AI-driven misuse of their identities. They have also directed Google, in the Sadhguru case, to develop automated deepfake-removal mechanisms and protected Shilpa Shetty in a case that examined whether an AI platform generating a celebrity’s personality can claim safe harbour at all. India still has no codified personality rights law, so courts continue to decide such disputes on a case-by-case basis.
Why it matters: Celebrities continue to approach courts over AI deepfakes even after India notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026. The rules brought synthetically generated information (SGI) within the intermediary framework and required platforms to label AI-generated content, embed traceable metadata, and act on takedown requests within three hours. The rules came into force on February 10, 2026. However, MediaNama’s reporting found that platforms, including Google, had not confirmed compliance at that time.
The Zinta suit raises the very question the rules were designed to address: if a regulatory framework already obliges platforms to police deepfakes, why must individuals still go to court to enforce it?
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