'Trust ECI to take action,' says Delhi HC while disposing of PIL to curb deep fake videos in Lok Sabha polls

Delhi HC junks plea against ECI

The Delhi High Court on May 2, observed that it trusts the Election Commission of India (ECI), to take appropriate action to stop the circulation of deep fake videos during the election.

Noting this, the court disposed off a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by an organisation called Lawyers Voice seeking directions against the ECI. The court further noted that it cannot pass such orders against the ECI in the middle of the elections.

During the course of the hearing, senior advocate Jayant Mehta, who appeared for the petitioners, argued that the ECI certifies any political advertisement meant for print and electronic media and a similar mechanism should be put in place for the content on social media as well.

The bench said: "Give a representation to the ECI, we can only direct them to examine the issue. At this moment the court cannot pass a direction in the middle of election. We have to trust ECI, they will act."

ECI told the court that the videos of Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh referred to in the PIL  have already been taken down and criminal complaints have been filed to investigate the perpetrators as well.

The court observed that action must be taken against accounts that post constantly and their names should be put in public domain as well. The Court further remarked that ECI can also think of dynamic injunction so that retweets of the deepfake videos can also be disabled.

Despite such observations, the court stopped short of passing any directions to ECI to formulate any guidelines as they were at the moment in the middle of elections.

In April,  a senior government official told Moneycontrol that action will be taken against miscreants as per the law.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, reiterated the importance of the March 15 advisory that India's IT ministry had issued to the industry in regards to deepfakes. "The advisory is clear," the official said.

In the advisory, the government had scrapped the controversial requirement of seeking government approval before publicly launching artificial intelligence (AI) products.