On July 8, 2026, the Bombay High Court handed Bollywood veteran Preity Zinta a major legal victory. The court ordered the immediate takedown of unauthorized AI deepfakes and morphed visuals using her likeness. Generative AI is moving faster than copyright law, and Indian public figures are increasingly relying on immediate court orders to maintain control over their own faces and voices.
Zinta’s senior counsel, Venkatesh Dhond, identified roughly 275 websites hosting the unauthorized content. The offending material included fake advertisements, manipulated images, and AI chatbot profiles pretending to be the actor. Single-judge Justice Madhav J Jamdar ruled that creating this superimposed content directly violates Zinta’s personality and moral rights. The bench held that these actions infringe upon fundamental constitutional rights, specifically citing Articles 19 and 21 regarding free speech and the right to life with dignity.
Representatives for tech giants Google and Meta agreed to remove the specific URLs listed in the petition. But they pushed back against a blanket ban. They asked for a practical protocol where the actor’s legal team communicates future infringing links to ensure legitimate content stays online. The court countered by issuing a stern oral warning regarding mandatory due diligence under Rule 3 of the Information Technology Rules, according to a detailed report by The Indian Express. The bench warned that if international tech organizations fail to actively curb such misuse, they become complicit in affecting the rights of Indian citizens.
Zinta is hardly the first star to file this kind of paperwork. Over the past two years, the Bombay and Delhi High Courts granted similar sweeping personality rights to a growing list of A-listers. Celebrities including Kartik Aaryan, Akshay Kumar, Shilpa Shetty, and Arijit Singh have all secured legal shields to prevent third parties from monetizing their digital likeness.