Shilpa Shetty’s lawyer Sana Raees Khan, who is representing her case, has firmly asserted that no entity can appropriate her name or likeness without consent, calling such misuse an outright assault on her dignity and hard-earned reputation.
Actress Shilpa Shetty approaches the Bombay High Court to safeguard her personality rights. The Bollywood actress is taking a strong stand against the unauthorised use of her images, videos, and even morphed content by various websites. Recently, her lawyer Sana Raees Khan, who is representing her case, has firmly asserted that no entity can appropriate her name or likeness without consent, calling such misuse an outright assault on her dignity and hard-earned reputation.
Speaking about Shilpa Shetty’s case her lawyer Sana Raees Khan talked about the rising urgency of personality-rights protection in the digital age. She talked about how important it is to have stronger laws to protect celebrities like Shilpa Shetty in this digital age. Sana stated, “Today, a person’s face, name, voice, or even mannerisms can be copied within seconds using AI. For celebrities, this misuse doesn’t just harm their reputation; it also causes huge commercial loss, damages brand associations, and misleads the public. Right now, we are relying on piecemeal protections under the IT Act, Copyright Act, and privacy laws, but India does not yet have a comprehensive statute protecting personality or publicity rights. That’s why stronger, clearer laws have become essential. When a public figure’s identity can be cloned by AI in minutes, the law must be equally fast and equally strong to protect them.”
She furthermore also shed light on the kind of misuse we are seeing, most fake ads, AI-made videos, false promotions, or impersonation and whether current laws are enough to stop this. To which she said, “The most common misuses today include Fake advertisements using a celebrity’s photo without permission, AI-generated videos and voice clones endorsing products they’ve never even heard of, False promotions claiming paid partnerships, Impersonation accounts that lure people into scams and Deepfake interviews where celebrities appear to endorse drugs, crypto schemes, etc. The truth is that our current laws are reactive, not preventive. While courts are giving strong orders like in the Kumar Sanu case, we still lack a dedicated personality rights law, which every major jurisdiction like the US already has. So, the legal framework exists, but it is not enough, especially against sophisticated AI misuse.”
She concluded by stating that the message she wants this case to set for companies, platforms, and content creators in the future and said, “I hope this case sets three precedents for companies that you cannot commercially exploit anyone’s face or name, especially a public figure, without written consent. For platforms, you must act faster, remove infringing content immediately, and create stronger filters for AI-generated misuse. And for creators and influencers, even “harmless promotion” without consent is a legal violation. Creative freedom does not include stealing someone else’s identity.”
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