Actor Shruti Haasan Moves Bombay High Court Over AI Deepfakes, Personality Rights Violations

Actress Shruti Haasan has moved the Bombay High Court with a commercial suit seeking ₹15 crore in damages, alleging that unauthorised merchandise sellers, online platforms, and unidentified parties have violated her personality and publicity rights by using her name, image, likeness and voice without her consent.

She has also alleged the creation and circulation of AI-generated deepfake content, including sexually explicit videos and images featuring her.

Justice Abhay Ahuja has granted Haasan leave under Clause XII of the Letters Patent to institute the suit before the High Court's Commercial Division.

Clause XII requires a plaintiff to obtain the Court's leave where only part of the cause of action has arisen within the Bombay High Court's territorial jurisdiction.

According to the plaint, filed through Anand & Naik, Haasan is "one of the most recognizable and popular actors and public personalities of Indian cinema."

The plaint states that the dispute began in the last week of June 2026, when Haasan became aware of unauthorised merchandise bearing her name and likeness being sold online.

Around the same time, Haasan also came across AI-generated videos being uploaded on social media. These included fake sexual and pornographic videos. More infringing material surfaced in the first week of July, prompting her to file the present suit.

The suit has been filed against 18 defendants. They include merchandise sellers, celebrity booking platforms, AI chatbot providers, social media companies, e-commerce platforms, government authorities, and unidentified other defendants.

One of the central allegations concerns the misuse of artificial intelligence and deepfake technology.

The plaint statesm "The Defendants, including several unidentified parties, are making use of AI and deepfake technology by morphing/superimposing the face of the Plaintiff to create distasteful videos and images of the Plaintiff which are also sexually explicit. These images/videos are not authorised by the Plaintiff and bring ridicule to the Plaintiff."

Haasan has claimed that such acts violate her personality and publicity rights.

The plaint states, "No one can utilize and/or misappropriate and/or imitate any facet of the Plaintiff's personality rights (including but not limited to exclusive exploitation of her name, signature, voice, image and any other distinctive elements that are uniquely associated with her) and/or exploit the same commercially in any manner whatsoever without the consent and/or express authorization of the Plaintiff."

Apart from personality rights, Haasan has also invoked her performers' moral rights under Sections 38, 38A and 38B of the Copyright Act.

According to the plaint, the defendants have extracted clips from films featuring her performances to create GIFs and deepfake videos without her consent.

It alleges that by reproducing those clips "in a manner which brings disrepute to the Plaintiff and makes her the subject of unsavoury humour, disrepute and baseless rumours," the defendants have violated her moral rights in those performances.

The plaint further states that the suit has been instituted, "to safeguard the Plaintiff's name, voice, image, likeness, signature, and all other facets of the Plaintiff's persona which are distinctive and exclusively associated with her, and the unauthorized use of which by third parties is likely to cause confusion and deception amongst the public."

Haasan has sought a permanent injunction restraining infringement of her personality and publicity rights, delivery-up of infringing material, rendition of accounts, and damages of ₹15 crore.

She has also sought directions for the takedown of the infringing content identified in the exhibits to the plaint. In addition, she has sought directions to intermediary platforms to disclose the subscriber details of anonymous infringers so they can be identified and impleaded in the proceedings.