The Bombay High Court has barred the unauthorised use of actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s name, image and voice, ordering takedowns of AI-generated deepfakes and morphed content.

Justice Madhav Jamdar passed the interim order in Samantha’s personality-rights suit against 18 defendants, including Meta, Google, Amazon, AI platforms, media entities and unnamed “John Doe” parties. The Ministry of Electronics and IT and the Department of Telecommunications were also made parties so the court’s directions can be enforced.

The judge observed that personality and publicity rights are protected under Articles 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution, covering free expression, privacy and human dignity, while moral rights as a performer are protected under Section 38B of the Copyright Act.

The actor had moved the court against the creation and circulation of non-consensual AI deepfakes built around her identity. The order is interim, with the suit seeking permanent injunctions, takedowns and damages.

The suit also seeks a John Doe order, a mechanism that lets the court act against infringers whose identities are not yet known. Mirror Now reported that the court specifically directed Google and Meta to remove unauthorised deepfakes, morphed imagery and derogatory content misusing the actor’s name, voice and likeness.