‘Pookie Baba’ Gets Legal Shield: Delhi HC Bars Memes or Deepfakes Using Aniruddhacharya’s Name, Image

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has upheld the personality rights of preacher Aniruddhacharya, popularly known as ‘Pookie Baba’, and barred the unauthorised use of his name, voice or image for creating memes, videos or any other content, including AI-generated and deepfake material.Justice Tushar Rao Gedela passed the interim order on March 30 on a lawsuit by Aniruddhacharya.The court also directed social media entities, Meta, X and Google to take down the offending content identified by the plaintiff, which unlawfully used or imitated his persona.The court opined that there was prima facie a strong case in favour of the plaintiff, who was a well-known, popular and well-accepted personality.The court stated that the nature of the content flagged

by him was not "mere parody" and appeared to be disparaging and infringing his personality rights.It said the apprehension of dent and damage to the image and personality of the plaintiff, prima facie, appeared to be real and present.Aniruddhacharya alleged that several entities were misappropriating the attributes of his personality without authorisation, licence, or consent, with the ulterior motive of deriving illegal commercial gain and free-riding upon his immense goodwill, commercial value, and reputation.His counsel submitted that certain deceptive and fabricated content was being circulated to falsely suggest that he endorsed or was associated with fraudulent schemes, and spurious goods and services.Further, the distortion and misrepresentation of his teachings in these posts resulted in a loss of goodwill among his devotees and followers and also had the potential to further mislead members of the public, the lawyer added.