Bombay: In a significant legal development addressing digital misinformation, the Bombay High Court has directed major social media platforms—including Meta, X, and Google—to immediately take down AI-generated deepfake videos and defamatory posts targeting Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and his family. The controversial online content attempted to link the minister to corrupt practices involving the central government’s E20 ethanol-blended fuel policy.
Presiding over the case, Justice Arif S. Doctor described the circulated materials as deeply abusive, vile, and entirely unfit for public digital platforms accessed by people of all ages. The court noted that while healthy debate and fair criticism of government decisions are protected rights, using fabricated visuals and derogatory language to ruin someone’s reputation cannot be tolerated.
The court’s intervention comes after Nitin Gadkari filed a civil petition against tech giants, government departments, and unknown online users who created and spread fake clips. These videos falsely claimed that Gadkari was personally running the E20 programme and that his family was illegally profiting from the policy. Clarifying his position in court, the minister stated that the ethanol-blended petrol initiative falls strictly under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and he holds no administrative or personal role in its execution.
Finding merit in Gadkari’s petition, the High Court granted interim relief and instructed platform operators to act swiftly. Representatives for Meta and Google informed the bench that they were ready to pull down the flagged links. Furthermore, the court granted Gadkari the freedom to directly report similar manipulative content to tech platforms in the future, urging social media companies to build stronger automated mechanisms that detect and purge vile content without requiring victims to seek court orders every single time. The matter is set to be heard again in four weeks.
