Delhi High Court Issues Notice to Salman Khan in Personality Rights Dispute with China-Based AI Voice Platform

The Delhi High Court has issued a notice to Bollywood superstar Salman Khan following an application by a China-based AI voice generation platform seeking to vacate an earlier interim injunction that protected the actor’s personality rights.

The development comes in the ongoing high-profile case where Salman Khan, in December 2025, approached the court alleging widespread unauthorized misuse of his name, image, voice, likeness, signature dance moves, dialogues, and other identifiable attributes—particularly through AI-generated deepfakes, morphing, superimposition, fake endorsements, and commercial exploitation without consent.

In response to Khan’s plea, Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora had granted interim relief, directing major social media platforms including Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google, X (formerly Twitter), Telegram, and others to treat the suit as a formal complaint under India’s Information Technology Act and Intermediary Guidelines Rules, 2021, and act swiftly against infringing content. The court emphasized protecting the actor’s “personality and publicity rights,” recognizing his unique persona—built around his massive fanbase, nicknames like “Bhaijaan,” and iconic elements from films like *Dabangg* and Mujhse Shaadi Karoge—as a valuable asset vulnerable to AI-driven misuse.

The China-based AI platform, which specializes in voice cloning and generation tools, has now challenged the interim order through an application to vacate it, arguing against the broad restraint on such technologies. In today’s hearing, the court issued notice to Salman Khan, seeking his response to the application within four weeks. The matter has been listed for further hearing on February 27, 2026.

This case underscores the escalating legal battles in India over celebrity personality rights amid the rapid rise of generative AI, deepfakes, and digital impersonation. Salman Khan joins a growing list of stars—including Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Kumar Sanu, and others—who secured similar interim protections from the Delhi High Court in 2025 to curb unauthorized exploitation.

The court’s evolving jurisprudence highlights the tension between protecting individual rights to control one’s identity and the innovation in AI tools, especially those from overseas platforms.