Aman Gupta, the co-founder of consumer electronics brand boAt Lifestyle and one of the most recognisable investor faces on Shark Tank India, filed a personality rights protection suit in the Delhi High Court on Thursday — joining a fast-growing list of Indian public figures turning to the judiciary to guard their identities against unauthorised use in the age of AI.
India’s courts are increasingly being asked to answer a question that didn’t exist five years ago: who owns your face, your voice, your likeness — and what happens when AI can replicate all three? The Delhi High Court has become the de facto battleground for this question, having already granted protection to a range of celebrities, including actors Allu Arjun, Kajol Devgan, and R Madhavan, cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, politician Pawan Kalyan, and creator-entrepreneur Raj Shamani. The court has also granted injunctions against AI-generated deepfakes targeting spiritual figures and journalists, signalling that personality rights protection is no longer reserved for Bollywood — it now extends squarely into the startup and creator economy.
Gupta’s petition, filed as Aman Gupta v. John Doe & Ors, was initially listed before Justice Jyoti Singh, who recused from the matter. It has been redirected to Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, with the next hearing scheduled for May 7. Senior Advocate Diya Kapur and Advocate Nakul Gandhi are representing Gupta. The specific trigger for the filing has not been disclosed publicly, but the suit’s framing against unnamed “John Doe” defendants is consistent with prior personality rights cases targeting unknown parties circulating AI-generated or misleading content across social media platforms.
This matters for the founder community beyond the courtroom. Gupta has spent years building one of India’s most valuable direct-to-consumer brands — boAt holds a dominant position in the Indian wearables market with a reported valuation of ₹2,200 crore at its last major funding milestone. His public persona — blunt, aspirational, unmistakably entrepreneurial — is inseparable from the brand.
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A deepfake of Gupta endorsing a fraudulent investment scheme or a rival product doesn’t just harm him personally; it carries real commercial risk for boAt and for consumer trust in the founders that India’s startup ecosystem has made into household names. The same logic applies to every other Shark Tank judge, prominent angel investor, or founder-turned-influencer operating in India today — which is why this filing, regardless of its legal outcome, is a signal worth watching.
The next hearing on May 7 will determine whether the court grants an interim injunction, which would immediately restrain any identified or unnamed party from using Gupta’s name, image, voice, or likeness without consent.
