NEW DELHI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday granted interim relief to Union minister Nitin Gadkari, directing social media intermediaries, including Meta, to take down defamatory deepfakes, AI-generated images and other posts linking him and his family to the government’s E20 ethanol-blending programme. The court described the flagged material as “vile and abusive”.Granting interim relief, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed intermediaries, including Meta, to take down deepfakes, AI-generated images and other posts falsely linking Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and his family to the E20 fuel controversy, describing the content as “vile and abusive.”The order was passed by Justice Arif Doctor on Wednesday in Gadkari’s suit against Meta Platforms, X, Google/YouTube, the Union ministry of electronics and information technology, the department of telecommunications and unidentified users.The court observed that the material cited by Gadkari was “absolutely vile” and abusive, and said such content should not be available on public platforms accessible to young people.“One such transcript appears on instagram reel. There are other content. The material which plaintiff seeks to pull down, I can only say that the same is absolutely vile abusive. Such material should have no place on public platform, which is accessible to everyone including young,” the court said in its interim order, as reported by Bar & Bench.The court said Gadkari had made out a case for ad interim relief. Meta and Google, which appeared before the court, agreed to remove the material identified in Exhibit C of the plaint. “Their statement is accepted,” the court said.The case concerns posts, reels and videos that Gadkari alleged contained manipulated images and videos, including AI-generated “defamatory content” and “deep fake content”. The material allegedly attributed personal responsibility to the Union minister for the E20 programme and suggested that he and his family had derived “undue pecuniary benefits” from ethanol blending.According to the plea, some posts referred to Gadkari’s son, Nikhil Gadkari, and his association with CIAN Agro Industries & Infrastructure Limited, which is involved in manufacturing ethanol and other products. The allegations sought to link that association to purported financial benefits from the E20 programme.
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Gadkari has denied the allegations.The suit also referred to social media content blaming the minister for introducing or mandating E20 petrol and alleging that ethanol-blended fuel had caused damage to vehicles. Gadkari argued that the posts insinuated corruption, conflict of interest and abuse of office.The court’s interim directions apply to the material identified in the proceedings, rather than constituting a blanket finding on all online criticism of the minister.The matter will come up for further hearing after four weeks, when the court is expected to consider the case further.
