Congress MP Tharoor Moves Delhi HC Against Publication Of Deepfake Videos
New Delhi : Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday filed a petition in the Delhi High Court against the publication of AI-generated deepfake videos showing him “praising Pakistan” and making statements on such “politically sensitive” issues. Justice Mini Pushkarna appealed to the Centre, as well as social media platforms
Tharoor’s senior lawyer Amit Sibal alleged that unknown organizations are constantly publishing fake videos misusing his face, voice and other aspects of his personality and these should be removed.
The senior lawyer argued that the videos damaged Tharoor’s reputation as a patriot and chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
“India Today and PTI have publicly stated that these are fake videos, but the public continues to get the impression that the videos are real and genuine,” he said.
“I am a former foreign minister. This is also important for India’s position… There is a high possibility of misuse by foreign states,” Sibal said, adding that even though the authorities had removed many offending URLs as per the complaint filed by Tharoor with the police under the IT Rules, the content continued to resurface.
Sibal emphasized that Tharoor is a public figure whose reputation has been damaged by such fake videos.
Meta’s lawyer reported that the offending content on Instagram was made inaccessible this morning.
In the lawsuit, Tharoor said that in or around March 2026, he discovered “a sophisticated, malicious campaign orchestrated by unknown violators” on social media platforms, depicting him in bad faith while making politically sensitive statements praising Pakistan.
The lawsuit alleged that the unauthorized copying and exploitation of Tharoor’s likeness, voice and mannerisms violated his personality and rights of publicity and also constituted a serious violation of his right to privacy.
“These violators weaponized artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create hyper-realistic audiovisual deepfakes by cloning the plaintiff’s face, voice, vocabulary, and mannerisms. These fabricated videos maliciously depict the plaintiff making politically sensitive statements that he never made,” the defense said.
“The disinformation campaign was particularly damaging as the plaintiff was actively campaigning for the 2026 Kerala Legislative Assembly elections in March and early April. It was a deliberate attempt to tarnish his patriotic credentials, manipulate public perception and unlawfully interfere with the democratic electoral process,” it added.
Many prominent personalities, including actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Salman Khan, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, podcaster Raj Shamani and Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, had earlier approached the high court seeking protection of their personalities and publicity rights. The high court granted them an interim injunction.
The apex court recently granted interim relief and also protected the personal rights of cricketer Gautam Gambhir and actors Sonakshi Sinha, Vivek Oberoi and Allu Arjun.
