Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has secured permission from the Bombay High Court to file a civil defamation suit against tech giants Meta, Google, and X Corp over AI-generated deepfake content.

The lawsuit targets malicious and fabricated material falsely linking Gadkari and his family to the government's E20 ethanol blending programme to impute corruption.

Justice Abhay Ahuja granted Gadkari leave under Clause XII of the Letters Patent, enabling the Mumbai court to hear the case because the digital content is accessible nationwide.

The suit emphasizes that the action is not intended to curb free speech or political dissent, but rather to protect personality rights and combat malicious deepfakes. It also names the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as a respondent.

The court is set to hear pleas for interim injunctions to mandate the immediate removal of the controversial content.