Delhi High Court orders Meta, YouTube to take down Rajat Sharma deepfakes

DELHI: Deepfakes have become the internet’s favourite party trick, and Indian courts are finally losing their patience with the joke. The Delhi High Court has directed Meta and Google to pull down a clutch of Facebook pages and YouTube channels that had been circulating deepfake videos of Rajat Sharma, chairman of India TV, in a ruling that ought to make every platform sit up.

The order, a decree of permanent injunction dated August 24, 2026, comes from justice Jyoti Singh, and it does not mess about on timelines. Meta and Google have been told to acknowledge any takedown request within 24 hours and act on it within 36 hours after that, failing which Sharma and India TV have been given the liberty to head straight back to court for further directions. The offending Facebook pages named in the order include Tamara Doc, Indian Medical Association, New Convivio, Travinin, The Hope of Your Joints, Legend Map 62 and Mesonero Soto, while the YouTube channels flagged are The Indian News Today and Sone Chandi Ka Bhav.

The court did not hold back on describing what was at stake. It noted that Sharma has anchored Indian television for close to three decades with an unblemished reputation both at home and abroad, and pointed to his Padma Bhushan, awarded in 2015 for his contribution to literature and education, alongside his run hosting India’s longest running television show, Aap Ki Adalat, now in its 29th year. The bench held that the defendants had been spreading serious misinformation by misusing AI to fabricate videos that distorted Sharma’s image, voice and other personal attributes, while also infringing India TV’s registered trademarks and copyright.

The case has a longer backstory. An earlier ex parte order from December 2024 had already restrained the first batch of eight defendants, and four YouTube channels, The Real Report, The Indian News Today, JSR News and Sone Chandi Ka Bhav, were added to the suit while it was pending. Google had already told the court in November 2025 that it had terminated the accounts of The Real Report and JSR News after reviewing complaints, though The Indian News Today and Sone Chandi Ke Bhav remained under review at the time, prompting the fresh 36 hour takedown direction for those two channels, along with an order to hand over subscriber information, IP logs and other access details. Most defendants were served notice but never filed a defence, and the court shut the door on that option in July 2026.

Looking ahead, the court has left the door open for Sharma and India TV to pursue a well-known trademark declaration for the India TV mark in a separate suit, and has allowed them to approach Meta and Google directly with any freshly discovered infringing content, complete with supporting documentation, rather than having to restart litigation from scratch each time.

For an industry still working out how to police AI-generated content, this order gives public figures a genuinely usable template: fast platform response times, backed by the threat of returning to court if platforms drag their feet.