Can an actor stop strangers from selling his face on t-shirts and mugs? At the interim stage, the Delhi High Court has ordered the takedown of deepfakes, impersonation accounts, fake websites and unauthorised merchandise listings in actor Vijay Deverakonda’s personality rights suit.
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New Delhi: Protecting actor Vijay Deverakonda’s personality rights at the interim stage, the Delhi High Court has directed Meta, Google and X Corp to take down the infringing content he identified, and has ordered e-commerce platforms and domain name registrars to remove unauthorised merchandise and fake websites within 72 hours [Vijay Sai Deverakonda v. Ashok Kumar John Doe and Others].
The order was passed by Justice Vikas Mahajan on October 8, 2026. He also issued summons in the suit and sought the defendants’ responses to the actor’s plea for an interim injunction.
Where the Court drew a line
Not every demand succeeded. The actor also asked for an injunction on use of the term ‘Rowdy’, which he says is associated with him from his role in the Telugu film ‘Arjun Reddy’. The Court declined an ex parte ad-interim injunction on the term at this stage. It held, however, that pairing an AI-generated morphed image of the actor with the expression ‘Rowdy’ falls within the violation of his personality rights.
The finding on infringement
A perusal of the infringing content enlisted in Annexure-A shows that there have been an unauthorised use of plaintiff’s name, image or other distinctive attributes for commercial purposes which constitutes an infringement of plaintiff’s personality rights, amounts to dilution of individual’s unique identity and leads to unearned commercial gain by others.
Who must do what
Meta, Google and X must remove, disable access to and permanently take down the infringing content identified in the suit. E-commerce websites have 72 hours from receiving a copy of the order to take down listings of unauthorised merchandise, and domain name registrars have the same 72 hours to lock and suspend the domains. The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Telecommunications are to issue directions to internet and telecom service providers for blocking access to the infringing websites.
What the suit complains of
The suit complains of impersonation, fake endorsements and fake websites which, his counsel argued, mislead the public. Deverakonda also asked for the removal of obscene, defamatory and abusive material, including AI-generated deepfakes and digitally manipulated content, along with mobile apps and merchandise such as t-shirts and mugs sold without his consent. The takedown sought reaches Meta platforms, X Corp, Google, Flipkart, Amazon, Meesho and Red Bubble. These are the plaintiff’s allegations.
What the order signals
AI deepfakes, impersonation accounts and fake endorsements are treated here as commercial misuse of identity, and platforms, registrars and internet service providers are put on a 72-hour clock. On a descriptive nickname the Court was more careful: the term alone is not injuncted at this stage, but its pairing with a morphed image is.
The order is interim. The defendants have been asked to respond to the injunction plea, and the matter is next listed on February 2, 2027.
Case Title: Vijay Sai Deverakonda v. Ashok Kumar John Doe and Others [CS(COMM) 1098/2026]
Bench: Justice Vikas Mahajan, Delhi High Court
Date of Order: October 8, 2026
Next Date: February 2, 2027
Appearances: Senior Advocate Swathi Sukumar with Advocates Rahul Kukreja, Sahil Raveen, Sahil Reddy, Jatin Shrivastava, Ritik Raghuwanshi, Rishika Aggarwal and Dhruv Kohli (plaintiff); Advocates Rohan Ahuja, Shruttima Ehersa, Aiswarya Debadarshini and Jahanvi Agarwal (Google); Advocates Abhijeet Shrivastava, Anshuman Shrivastava, Shashank S Dwivedi and Ananya Sahu (Flipkart); Advocates Vivek Ayyagari, Abhay Aren and Mishthi Dubey (Meesho); Advocates Anshuman Gupta and Karan Aggarwal (Zedge)