Asha Bhosle v. Mayk Inc & Ors.

Asha Bhosle is one of Indian cinema's best-known playback singers, with a career that, as Bar & Bench reported, has lasted 82 years and includes the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Padma Vibhushan and two Grammy nominations.¹ In September 2025 she filed a commercial intellectual-property suit in the Bombay High Court, recorded as Commercial IP Suit (L) No. 30262 of 2025 with Interim Application (L) No. 30382 of 2025. The suit was later registered as Commercial IP Suit No. 641 of 2025.²⁴

She said that the misuse of her name, voice and image was damaging the reputation and goodwill built over her career. The suit joined two kinds of defendants: companies and individuals who exploit her persona commercially, and platforms that host or sell the offending material. It came a year after the Bombay High Court's Arijit Singh order against AI voice-cloning services, and within weeks of the Delhi High Court's orders for Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan.¹⁷⁸

According to Bar & Bench, the defendants were:¹

• Mayk Inc, an AI company that allegedly offered cloned versions of her voice, including tools that convert other voices into hers.
• Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd. and Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd., accused of displaying and selling posters and merchandise using her likeness without consent.
• An independent artist, accused of selling apparel bearing her image.
• Google LLC, as operator of YouTube, where AI-generated videos imitating her voice were uploaded.

The cause title in the court's own orders records Mayk Inc as the lead defendant, and later orders show counsel appearing for Defendant 4 and Defendant 6 (Google, which is based in the United States).³⁴ The plaintiff was represented by Ankit Lohia, Vikram Trivedi, Rashid Boatwalla, Lipsa Unadkat and Garima Jain, instructed by Manilal Kher Ambalal & Co. Google's counsel were Charu Shukla and Amishi Sodani.¹

The case came before Justice Arif S. Doctor on 25 September 2025. The court's order of that day records only that the matter had been wrongly placed on the board and was to be listed on 29 September 2025.²

Justice Doctor granted ad-interim relief on 29 September 2025. The full text of the 29 September order was not available for this entry, so the account below rests on Bar & Bench's report of 2 October 2025 and on the later orders that refer to the 29 September order.¹³⁴

Findings. Prima facie, the court held that unauthorised use of a celebrity's name, voice, photographs, caricatures or likeness violates publicity and personality rights. It said that making AI tools available to convert any voice into a celebrity's voice without permission would violate those rights, and described such tools as facilitating the unauthorised appropriation and manipulation of a celebrity's voice. The court relied on the Bombay High Court's Arijit Singh v. Codible Ventures LLP (2024) and on the Delhi High Court's Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. Aishwaryaworld.com (2025). It also noted that the failure of some defendants to appear after being served strengthened Ms. Bhosle's claim. The balance of convenience was found to lie entirely in her favour.¹

Directions. As reported, the court ordered:¹

• Defendants 1, 2 and 5 (the AI and seller defendants) are restrained from using her name, voice, likeness and other personal attributes for commercial or personal gain, including through AI voice models, generative AI or face morphing, without her written consent. They must remove infringing material and hand over copies for destruction.
• Amazon and Flipkart (Defendants 3 and 4) must remove the listed infringing products within one week and take down similar listings when notified.
• Google (Defendant 6) must remove the specific URLs in the plaint and similar AI-generated content when reported.
• All platforms must provide subscriber or seller details of the infringing parties, including names, contact details, IP logs and payment details.

The later orders show that the 29 September order contained a disclosure direction at para 18(iii).⁴ The next hearing was fixed for 13 October 2025.¹

On 13 October 2025 Justice Doctor recorded, on a statement by counsel for Defendant 4, that the 29 September order had been complied with. He stood the matter over to 17 November 2025 and continued the ad-interim relief. Vikram Trivedi and Rashid Boatwalla appeared for Ms. Bhosle, with counsel for Defendants 4 and 6 also present.³

The next verified order, of 8 December 2025, was passed by Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh. Counsel for Defendants 4 and 6 said that, under para 18(iii) of the 29 September order, they would provide the required information once the plaintiff made a proper request. Defendant 6, they added, is based in the United States and subject to the privacy rules that apply there. The plaintiff's counsel said that once the plaintiff identifies infringing content, it will send a request to Defendants 4 and 6, and that if the content relates to the subject matter of the 29 September order those defendants must provide the details so that the plaintiff can take further action. The court adjourned the matter to 14 January 2026 and continued the ad-interim relief. The order records no decree, no ex parte ruling and no settlement.⁴

The order shows the Bombay High Court extending its Arijit Singh template to a second well-known singer within fourteen months. Four features matter for AI governance.

1. Voice is treated as an attribute of persona. As in Arijit Singh, the court did not need an AI-specific statute. It treated a cloned voice as the use of a protected attribute, which brings text-to-speech and voice-conversion tools within existing personality-rights doctrine.
2. Tool providers are targeted directly. The proposition that offering tools which convert any voice into a celebrity's voice would violate personality rights looks past the end users to the company that supplies the capability.
3. Platforms must remove "similar" AI content on notice. Google was told to remove not only listed URLs but similar AI-generated content when reported, a notice-based form of dynamic relief of the kind seen in the Sadhguru order.
4. Cross-border friction appears. The December 2025 hearing recorded that a US-based defendant would only provide information on a proper request and within US privacy rules, which shows that identifying the people behind AI-generated content can depend on platform cooperation.⁴

In October 2025 counsel for Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar cited the Asha Bhosle order (reported as 2025 SCC OnLine Bom 3485, paras 15 to 18) alongside the Arijit Singh, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Karan Johar orders. Both Bombay High Court orders record it only as part of the plaintiffs' submissions, and neither analyses it.⁵⁶ A LiveLaw analysis of October 2025 names Asha Bhosle among the celebrities seeking such orders and criticises the pattern as piecemeal, arguing that Parliament should legislate with carve-outs for satire, parody and news reporting.⁹

The suit is pending, and the ad-interim relief granted on 29 September 2025 was continued at each hearing verified: 13 October 2025 and 8 December 2025. The last order verified for this entry is that of 8 December 2025, which lists the matter for 14 January 2026.³⁴

As of 15 October 2026, no later order, decree, settlement or final judgment has been verified, and the full text of the 29 September 2025 order was not available. The outcome of the 14 January 2026 hearing and the present stage of the suit are therefore not recorded here.