The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted interim relief to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in his defamation suit seeking the removal of AI-generated deepfake and defamatory content linking him and his family to the Centre’s E20 ethanol-blending programme, Bar & Bench reported.
According to Bar & Bench, Justice Arif Doctor directed social media platforms and intermediaries, including Meta and Google/YouTube, to take down the content identified by Gadkari, describing the material as “absolutely vile” and abusive.
“The material which the plaintiff seeks to pull down… is absolutely vile abusive. Such material should have no place on a public platform,” the Court observed while granting ad-interim relief.
Gadkari’s suit, filed against Meta, X, Google/YouTube, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Department of Telecommunications and unidentified users, alleges that manipulated videos and posts falsely portray him and his family as beneficiaries of the government’s E20 ethanol-blending policy.
The petition contends that the content falsely attributes personal responsibility for the E20 programme to Gadkari and wrongly suggests that his family profited from it through a private company.
Gadkari denied the allegations, stating that the ethanol-blending programme is administered by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
The Union Minister clarified that he was not seeking to curb fair criticism of government policy but only the removal of fabricated, abusive and defamatory content, Bar & Bench reported. The matter has been posted for further hearing after four weeks.
