Source: LiveLaw

On 12 September 2026 the Supreme Court of India stayed proceedings pending before the Gujarat High Court in a public interest litigation seeking regulation of deepfake and other AI‑generated content on digital and social media. The bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana passed the order while issuing notice on the Union Government's plea to transfer the matter to the Supreme Court; Advocate Zoheb Hossain told the Court that similar proceedings in other High Courts have been interdicted and are pending before the Supreme Court.

The Gujarat High Court had in April issued notices to intermediaries including X, Meta, Google and Reddit to respond to affidavits from State and Central governments about practical implementation of due diligence obligations under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 as amended in 2026. The division bench identified the core issue as strict enforcement and uniform implementation of the statutory regime and directed intermediaries to ensure "swift action/response" to statutory notices issued under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, 2000 to meet time‑bound takedown obligations. The State proposed framing a robust policy mandating immediate coordination between investigating authorities and digital service providers, while the Central Government submitted that the SAHYOG Portal (operational since October 2024) routes intimations under Section 79(3)(b) read with Rule 3(1)(d) and enables coordinated takedowns and access to subscriber information; it was represented that 524 intermediaries have been onboarded but some, notably X (formerly Twitter), had not fully integrated and often "fail to respond". The order is interlocutory as the Supreme Court considers the transfer plea and further hearing.