Actor Aishwarya Rai urges Delhi HC to restrain illegal use of name, image
New Delhi (PTI): Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on Tuesday urged the Delhi High Court to protect her personality rights and restrain online platforms from illegally using her name, images and AI-generated pornographic content.
Justice Tejas Karia orally hinted that he would pass an ad-interim order cautioning the defendants.
The suit related to misappropriation of various aspects of her personality, including her name, image, likeness, persona and voice, and the defendants are using them for their own commercial gain without obtaining her consent.
"The defendants including several unidentified parties are making use of artificial intelligence and deepfake technology by morphing/superimposing the face of plaintiff to create distasteful videos and images of the plaintiff which are sexually explicit," the plea said.
Senior advocate Sandeep Sethi, appearing for Rai, said the actor wanted to enforce her publicity and personality rights, pointing out some completely unreal intimate photographs were being circulated online.
"There can be no right in their favour to use her images, likeness or persona. A gentleman is collecting money merely by putting my name and face," Sethi argued.
He went on, "Her name and likeness is being used to satisfy someone's sexual desires. This is very unfortunate. "
Sethi claimed T-shirts and mugs with his client's pictures were being sold illegally.
Rai was also represented through advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik and Dhruv Anand.
The high court then posted the matter on November 7 before the court's joint registrar and the court on January 15, 2026, for further proceedings.
The right to publicity, popularly known as personality rights, is the right to protect, control, and profit from one's image, name, or likeness.
The different aspects of Rai's personality which she sought to be protected include her name, voice, image, unique style of dialogue delivery and signature.
The plea said misappropriation of any attribute of the plaintiff's persona without her express permission for a commercial purpose is liable to be restrained on the basis of the traditional conception of publicity rights.
"This is more egregious when the defendants' activities are aimed at benefitting commercially. In such cases, the plaintiff's identity is used in an unwholesome and unsavory manner which maligns her reputation and exposes her to ridicule, thereby tarnishing her image," it added.
The suit has arrayed as defendants, websites like aishwaryaworld.com, apkpure.com, bollywoodteeshop.com, kashcollectiveco.com which unauthorisedly sells products with name and photograph of the actor.
Further, the plea has arrayed as defendants e-commerce platform Etsy, organisation 'Aishwarya Nation Wealth Motivational Speaker, chatbot with AI characters www.jainatorai.com , YouTube channel @NewNWSTamil, @Bollywood_CinemaTV07, Google LLC, Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Department of Telecommunications.
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Fascism will not be allowed to enter through the back door of vote rigging: CM Siddaramaiah
New Delhi: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday asserted that fascism would not be allowed to enter India “through the back door of vote rigging” and called upon citizens to collectively defend the country’s democratic foundations.
Speaking after participating in an anti–vote rigging protest organised in New Delhi, Siddaramaiah said the gathering was not merely a political demonstration but a stand to protect Indian democracy. “We have come to the heart of our republic not as Congress workers or voters, but as protectors of Indian democracy,” he said.
Emphasising the importance of the right to vote, Siddaramaiah said it was the most sacred right guaranteed by the Constitution and the very foundation of democracy.
“Through voting, a farmer shapes the future of his children, a worker safeguards his dignity, a youth realises dreams, and a nation expresses its collective will,” he said.
He accused the BJP-led Union government of attempting to undermine this right through what he termed systematic vote rigging, including the alleged misuse of the special revision of electoral rolls. “This power is being stolen repeatedly,” he alleged.
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Warning against authoritarian tendencies, Siddaramaiah said history had shown that dictatorship does not begin with violence but with the misuse of institutions and manipulation of democratic systems.
“Across the world, authoritarian regimes pretend to protect democracy while quietly subverting it. This is what the BJP is doing today,” he charged.
He alleged that the ruling party was controlling institutions, intimidating electoral machinery, distorting voter lists, suppressing voter turnout in opposition strongholds, and misusing money and power. “This is not mere maladministration. Vote rigging is an attack on the very idea of India,” he said.
Siddaramaiah further claimed that governments formed through “stolen votes” could not be considered democratic.
“Such regimes survive through fear, fraud and distortion of the people’s mandate,” he said, adding that vote rigging posed the biggest threat to the republic since Independence.
Praising Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Siddaramaiah said he had shown exceptional courage in exposing alleged irregularities in voter lists, booth-level manipulation and “systematic, organised vote rigging” across several states, including Karnataka, Haryana and Bihar.
Referring to Karnataka, Siddaramaiah cited Mahadevpura and Aland constituencies as examples highlighted by Gandhi. In Mahadevpura, he said, thousands of allegedly fake and fraudulent voter entries and discrepancies in electoral rolls pointed to a narrow BJP victory. In Aland, he said, attempts were made to remove the names of legitimate voters ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections.
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He noted that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) had recently filed a chargesheet accusing seven persons, including a former BJP MLA and his son, of attempting to delete the names of around 6,000 voters in Aland.
“This is a significant legal step in the fight against vote rigging,” he said.
Siddaramaiah concluded by stating that the fight against vote rigging was rooted in constitutional morality, Ambedkarite thought and the core principle of democracy. “Sovereignty belongs to the people, not to any party, regime or those who seek to steal elections,” he said.
