Justice Tushar Rao Gedela of the Delhi High Court passed the interim order after entrepreneur and Shark Tank India judge Aman Gupta filed a suit alleging widespread unauthorised commercial use of his personality attributes across online platforms. Gupta is the co-founder of consumer electronics brand boAt.
The suit named several defendants, including unknown persons, online intermediaries, and websites allegedly using his name, image, voice, likeness, slogans, and trademarks without authorisation. The alleged infringements included AI-generated chatbots impersonating Gupta, fake event booking listings, the sale of merchandise bearing his catchphrases, fake Instagram profiles, the publication of purported contact details, and the circulation of pornographic and deepfake content.
What the court said: The Court held that Gupta had established sufficient goodwill and public recognition to seek protection of his personality and trademark rights. The order stated: “The manner in which the defendants are exploiting his name, voice, persona, slogans, registered trade marks of the plaintiff positively assert the underlying fact of plaintiffs’ personality which are exclusive to him and none else.”
On the alleged deepfake and obscene content, the Court said: “It goes without saying that the sexually explicit material/videos created by the defendants using the personality traits and attributes of the plaintiff, surely is an aspect which needs immediate and urgent consideration by the Court.”
Accordingly, the Court restrained the defendants from “misusing or exploiting the plaintiff’s name, likeness, image, voice, photos, videos, GIFs, contact details, or any aspect of the plaintiff’s persona” without written authorisation, including through “AI, deepfake technology, or any medium”. The case will now be heard on October 1, 2026.
Right to flag new URLs: The Court also allowed Gupta to flag newly discovered infringing websites during the pendency of the suit. It directed the defendants, Meta, Google, and GoDaddy, to “forthwith lock or suspend the domain name registrations” of such websites after receiving supporting evidence from the plaintiff. The order also directed the platforms to remove identified infringing material and disclose user details linked to certain allegedly fake profiles and accounts.
RocketReach and GIFs among infringing material: The order includes several seemingly routine internet services among the allegedly infringing material. These include RocketReach, ContactOut, EasyLeadz, and RapidKings, platforms that publish or aggregate professional contact details and email information. It also lists multiple Tenor and Giphy URLs containing GIFs featuring Gupta.
Why this matters: This order is the latest in a rapidly growing body of personality rights litigation from Sadhguru’s dynamic+ injunction against deepfake scam sites to Shilpa Shetty’s deepfake case against AI-generated obscene content. However, India still has no statute codifying these rights. Courts build precedent case by case, leaving enforcement reactive rather than systemic. The Gupta order goes further than most: it ropes in contact-aggregator platforms like RocketReach and GIF repositories alongside AI impersonators, broadening what “infringement” means.
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