New Delhi, Oct 1 (NationPress) The Delhi High Court has issued an ad-interim injunction favoring spiritual figure and Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, prohibiting unidentified parties from unauthorized exploitation of his name, image, likeness, voice, and other personal attributes through deepfakes and AI technology.

A single-judge bench led by Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, while reviewing a complaint lodged by Ravi Shankar against unknown defendants, noted that the dissemination of manipulated videos portraying the plaintiff as endorsing dubious Ayurvedic or natural treatments for serious conditions such as diabetes, hemorrhoids, and chronic pain constitutes a violation of his personality and publicity rights.

The court acknowledged that Ravi Shankar, often referred to as “Gurudev” and “Sri Sri”, holds a significant standing as a humanitarian and peace ambassador, whose persona is laden with considerable goodwill and economic value. The plaintiff's legal representatives argued that deepfake videos not only mislead the public but also undermine trust, inflicting irreparable harm to his dignity and reputation.

While issuing the interim order, the Delhi High Court remarked, “It is clear that an unknown party (John Doe) is disseminating unauthorized deepfake content using the name, voice, facial expressions, persona, and likeness of the plaintiff. This establishes a prima facie case in favor of the plaintiff.”

“The balance of convenience favors the plaintiff, and if action is not taken against John Doe, it will lead to irreparable damage to the plaintiff,” it continued.

Justice Arora forbade John Doe and all related individuals from misusing the plaintiff's personality traits, including his name, voice, image, likeness, and style of speaking, across any medium, particularly in AI-generated or deepfake material.

Social media giant Facebook was instructed to remove or disable access within 36 hours to the URLs and accounts identified in the suit, as well as adhere to future requests from the plaintiff regarding similar infringing content.

Furthermore, Domain Name Registrars were mandated to lock and suspend the specified infringing domains within 72 hours and to provide registrant information and IP addresses in compliance affidavits.

The Delhi High Court also called upon the Ministry of Electronics and IT and the Department of Telecommunications to issue necessary directives to block the infringing websites. A hearing is scheduled before the Joint Registrar on October 15 and before the Delhi High Court on February 19, 2026.