Chandigarh: A Chandigarh civil court has restrained three Facebook pages — ‘Thanedar uncle’, ‘Kachi laan’ and ‘Batale Di Rajneeti’ — from publishing or uploading AI-generated content involving Batala Congress functionary Amandeep Kumar aka Jaintipura, observing that the videos appear to malign an individual.Civil judge (junior division) Kuldeep Singh also directed Facebook to suspend the three pages or disable public access to them till the next hearing on Oct 22.The suit, filed by Amandeep, contends that his image had been fabricated using AI in a manner he “never adopted, posed for or consented to”. He said the impugned content had received nearly 3 lakh views.Jaintipura’s counsel submitted that Amandeep was a “front runner” for a Congress ticket from Batala for the 2027 assembly elections, and that the AI-generated content was “calculated to malign his image”.After going through the record and a pen-drive containing the videos, the court said the material apparently depicted Amandeep in a negative character. “The pages appear to have a political agenda which is beyond healthy public criticism and apparently maligns the image of an individual without verified facts, knowingly,” the court said.It added, “This is quite a serious act done in a very uncontrolled casual manner, which may adversely affect the health of our democracy and a process of manufacturing of public consent… ruling party is responsible for controlling such acts.”The court also noted that the AI-generated scripted videos contained politically calculated material in favour of the ruling party in Punjab against the plaintiff, who is from the opposition party.The court granted an interim injunction against the three defendants.
