Delhi High Court Protects Actor Vijay Deverakonda's Personality Rights Against AI Deepfakes

Justice Vikas Mahajan ordered 94 listed links taken down and domains locked, and directed the government to have the sites blocked.

The Court said Deverakonda's stature “inherently grants him proprietary rights over his personality and associated attributes.”

Deverakonda moved the court against the defendants to get a takedown order of infringing material against him.

His case is that these platforms hosted content falsely using his persona. This includes fake Instagram accounts impersonating him, and AI-generated and morphed videos on YouTube, including obscene and derogatory ones.

It also covers abusive posts on X, merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs, stickers and an unauthorised e-book on Flipkart, Amazon, Meesho and Redbubble, and wallpaper sites and mobile apps. He said this misuse harms his reputation, dignity and brand value and misleads the public into thinking he endorses it.

The Court said his stature gives him “the exclusive rights to use the personality attributes for commercial purposes” and the right to protect them from unauthorised use.

It also covers protection from “offensive content which is abusive, vulgar and profane which tarnishes the reputation and goodwill of the plaintiff.”

It found a prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable harm, noting that the “apprehension of dent and damage to the image and personality of the plaintiff, prima facie, appears to be real and present.”

The Court drew a line on his nickname. It said an ex parte injunction cannot be granted for passing off the colloquial name “Rowdy”, since it must be shown that the word has acquired a secondary meaning exclusively associated with him.

However, using an AI-generated or morphed image of him with “Rowdy” would violate his personality rights.

Until the next hearing, the defendants are restrained from using his name (in the spellings “Vijay Deverakonda”, “Vijay Devarakonda” and “Vijay Sai Deverakonda”), his initials “VD”, voice, signature, fashion style, photographs, movie stills, performance and other identifiable attributes.

This covers use through AI, generative AI, deepfakes, face morphing and GIFs, on any medium. Meta, Google and X must remove the listed content.

The marketplaces must take down their listed URLs within 72 hours of being sent the order and file compliance affidavits within two weeks.

Platforms may seek clarification, and any website wrongly blocked can approach the Court with an undertaking not to infringe so the injunction can be modified.

Deverakonda may report future infringing content to the relevant intermediary.

The matter goes before the Joint Registrar on December 3, 2026 and before the Court on February 2, 2027.

For Vijay Deverakonda: Senior Advocate Swathi Sukumar with Advocates Rahul Kukreja, Sahil Raveen, Sahil Reddy, Jatin Shrivastava, Ritik Raghuwanshi, Rishika Aggarwal and Dhruv Kohli

For Defendants: Advocates Rohan Ahuja, Shruttima Ehersa, Aiswarya Debadarshini and Jahanvi Agarwal for D-3; Advocates Abhijeet Shrivastava, Anshuman Shrivastava, Shashank S. Dwivedi and Ananya Sahu for D-5; Advocates Vivek Ayyagari, Abhay Aren and Mishthi Dubey for D7; Advocates Anshuman Gupta and Karan Aggarwal for D-23.