The Bombay High Court has allowed actor Preity Zinta to move ahead with a lawsuit against Google LLC, Meta and several other entities. The case is about AI generated deepfake content that allegedly uses her face, voice and persona without permission.
Justice Abhay Ahuja passed the order on Tuesday. It does not decide the case itself. It only clears the way for Zinta to file the actual suit before the High Court.
What the order allows
Zinta needed special permission before filing her suit in Bombay. This is because some of the parties she wants to sue are based outside Mumbai, and the alleged online activity touches more than one location.
Under Clause XII of the Letters Patent, a plaintiff must get the court’s leave when part of the cause of action arises outside its territorial limits. Justice Ahuja granted this leave. With that, Zinta can now go ahead and register her civil suit on the original side of the Bombay High Court.
The case has been listed as Preity Zinta v. Google LLC & Ors.
What Zinta is alleging
According to the petition, the defendants created, uploaded and spread AI generated deepfake videos, memes, morphed images and even chatbot personas built around her identity. These were allegedly circulated across Google’s platforms, Meta’s platforms and a number of websites.
Zinta’s case rests on a few legal grounds. She says the content breaches her personality rights. She also says it infringes her copyright and violates her moral rights under Section 62 of the Copyright Act, 1957. Beyond that, she claims the deepfakes have hurt her goodwill and professional reputation, both built over a long career in Hindi cinema.
Once the suit is filed, she plans to seek injunctions to stop further circulation of this content, along with damages.
Why the Bombay Court has jurisdiction
Deepfake content spreads globally the moment it is uploaded. That raises a basic legal question: which court gets to hear such a case?
Zinta’s lawyers argued that she is an Indian citizen who lives and works mainly in Mumbai. Her goodwill and professional standing, they said, are rooted in that city. Since most of the harm from the alleged deepfakes lands on her reputation in Mumbai, the Bombay High Court is the right forum, even though the content itself sits on servers and platforms spread across the world.
Justice Ahuja accepted this reasoning and granted the leave Zinta had sought.