Nitin Gadkari can sue Meta, X over AI deepfakes on E20 rules: Bombay High Court

The Union Ministries of Electronics and Information Technology and Telecommunications have also been named as respondents.

What Nitin Gadkari’s suit says

In the suit, Nitin Gadkari said purpose of his civil suit against Meta Platforms, X Corp, Google LLC and others was not to prevent public discussion or criticism of his actions or government policies.

“The purpose and object of filing the suit is not to curtail or prevent the public at large from engaging in discussion, debate, analysis or fair, just and bona fide criticism of any decision taken by the plaintiff himself or by his office,” the plea said, arguing that the defamatory and deepfake content published by defendant platforms are “false, fabricated and defamatory with respect of the plaintiff”.

The suit says the deepfake videos amount to an unauthorised use of Gadkari’s personality and publicity rights without his consent.

“Plaintiff has no role or nexus whatsoever with EBP or the E20 initiative, which is administered exclusively by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The Defamatory Content, insofar as it consists of profane and abusive language directed at the Plaintiff, falls outside the ambit of legitimate political criticism or satire. The Deep Fake Content constitutes an unauthorised exploitation of the Plaintiffs personality and publicity rights. That the balance of convenience lies in favour of the Plaintiff, who continues to suffer irreparable harm to his reputation not compensable in terms of money,” the suit states.

In his plea, Nitin Gadkari has alleged that some unknown persons circulated posts and deepfake content, falsely portraying him as personally responsible for the EBP and E20 initiatives. The suit further claimed these posts also allege that he and his family had financially benefited from it.

The suit calls the allegations false and designed to create a misleading impression that Gadkari has misused his public office for private gain, causing irreparable harm to his reputation.

It seeks directions to the defendants to remove, disable and stop the circulation of the allegedly defamatory and manipulated content.

The case comes after the BJP’s Nagpur city social media cell chief filed a police complaint against several social media influencers and content creators over posts allegedly targeting Gadkari in connection with the ethanol-blended fuel controversy.