Yash Jain*
Introduction
In June 2026, The Hindu reported that two Guwahati-based private schools in Assam became the epicentre of a shocking deepfake scandal. Some male students allegedly used artificial intelligence tools to sexually morph deepfake images of female students and teachers. Together, these two cases reveal how artificial intelligence has been weaponised against people, especially women, whose dignity is at stake. This raises an important question that every law expert, person who makes laws, and citizen should think about: Can the laws in India, which were made in an era when we relied so much on physical evidence, work in a time when people can easily make fake things seem real?
The Deepfake Crisis: Understanding the Unprecedented Threat
Deepfakes are media created using specialised computer programs, such as generative adversarial networks and autoencoders, to alter or fake audio and video in ways that are very hard to distinguish from the real thing. Unlike photos or videos that have been altered in a way that can be noticed, deepfakes use computer systems trained on large amounts of data to produce a look that is perfect. In today’s time, anyone can use deepfakes because tools like FaceSwap and DeepFaceLab are free and easy to use, even for people who don’t know much about computers.
Deepfakes are also a problem for people as individuals, for women’s rights, and for getting along with each other. Most of the time, deepfakes that show private things are made without the person’s permission. They are mostly made to hurt women, which is a violation of their rights and can be a form of sexual violence on the internet. Nonetheless, Deepfakes can sometimes make it seem like the government made a decision which it really didn’t make, causing problems among countries.
Platform Angle and Intermediary Liability
Today, the majority of the deepfakes spread on social media sites like Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram. These intermediaries must exercise due diligence according to the Information Technology Act and the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021. This includes removing content that is flagged as obscene or pornographic as soon as they receive any grievance or government notice. Nevertheless, platforms rely on post hoc complaints rather than identifying the threat proactively, making these regulations prone to the absence of a specific target of AI-generated content. Therefore, intermediary obligations where companies are the main antagonists should be mandate to (a) put in place a way to label or mark content that users upload and which is generated by computers; (b) create a way for people to complain about deepfakes with accelerated timelines; and (c) regularly carry out risk assessments on the circulation of manipulative AI content, especially when minors are involved.
The Legal Deficiency: Why Existing Indian Laws Fall Short
The Information Technology Act, 2000: A Tool Designed for Simpler Threats
Various provisions of the IT Act remain India’s primary legal framework for digital offences. Provisions such as Section 66D, addressing identity theft; Section 66E, addressing violations of privacy; Section 67, addressing obscene material; and Section 69, addressing government interception, are among the various provisions addressing digital harms. However, these provisions were conceptualised when digital threats meant hacking, phishing, and identity theft, problems requiring direct access, and not modern digital threats such as deepfake videos.
The IT Act says it is a crime to upload or send material under Section 67. This part of the law is really about pornography, not fake intimate content that is made by computers. There is also Section 66E, which is supposed to protect people’s privacy, which says that a person cannot take, share, or send pictures of someone in a place where they think they are private. Until now, Judicial interpretation has largely concentrated on camera-based intrusion into private spaces, such as voyeurism through hidden cameras, rather than algorithmically produced photos that don’t depict real private conduct. In K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, the Supreme Court recognised the right to privacy as an intrinsic part of Article 21 of the Constitution, but the IT Act does not really talk about how it handles the privacy of things which are made by artificial intelligence. Consequently, courts have a hard time figuring out if a deepfake is “obscene material” under Section 67 or a “privacy violation”, under Section 66E. This becomes especially tricky when no real person was there or was recorded. Deepfakes are not real pictures that someone took; rather, they are pictures that computers make. Technology used to make deepfakes is very different from what laws were made to handle, which renders the courts a large time figuring out how to deal with deepfakes, using these laws.
The Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita: Provisions Designed for Concrete Reality
The BNS provisions indicate the time restraints of the statute, as seen in deepfake cases. Section 356 refers to defamation and publications that are literally true yet damaging to one’s reputation. Though defamation laws could be on the table, deepfake victims would need to prove that the deepfakes in question were, in fact, false, and that they suffered harm as a result.
The provision in the Indian Penal Code resulting in the promotion of hostility between different groups, Section 196, and the provision in the Indian Penal Code concerning the statements which lead to public mischief, Section 353, may be the most appropriate provisions to be invoked when deepfakes are used to worsen conflicts among communities or cause widespread misinformation amongst the people at large. Thus, even when defamation and public mischief laws may provide help in certain situations, they are still insufficient to address the dignity- based harms caused by deepfakes. However, these provisions require individuals to prove that the deepfakes were intended to cause public disorder and to stir violence among different communities. Furthermore, the maker of the deepfake may claim that the deepfake was intended to be a joke or for fun, which can sidestep the intent of the deepfake to the authorities.
Deepfakes spread fast on the internet, and when the police and courts try to investigate them, it takes a long time. This shows that these laws do not actually work. The greatest difficulty is the lack of any specific law that states that the creation and distribution of deepfakes constitute a crime. To date, the legislature in India has not classified deepfakes as a crime for which separate legal provisions are required.
Constitutional Dimensions: Article 21, Dignity and Privacy
The constitutional guarantee of dignity has certainly been implied in this essay. The Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India recognised that dignity is the fundamental principle of the Constitution and that privacy is an inevitable element enshrined in the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21. The Court further included the elements “bodily privacy”, “decisional autonomy” and “informational privacy” under the broader spectrum of the right to privacy. Deepfakes immediately put this constitutional dignity at stake by undermining decisional and informational autonomy.
Current criminal and cyber laws are mostly reactive and do not specifically protect our right to have dignity online. Although the Supreme Court has made some rulings acknowledging intermediary liability, such as in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, which comprehensively addressed Section 66A of the IT Act, AI-generated injuries have not yet been specifically covered by the constitutional framework. Therefore, there is a need for a strong legal response to deepfakes. This response should come from both the criminal law and the government’s duty to safeguard people from abuses of dignity and privacy.
Recent Government Advisories and Policy Discussions
Despite the lack of a specific deepfake law, the government has issued several advisories and conducted policy talks on synthetic content and artificial intelligence. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) warned social media companies in late 2023 and early 2024 about fake AI videos of celebrities and public figures. To specifically address synthetically generated information, draft amendments to the IT Rules were proposed in 2025. These revisions would require platforms to label such content and include ways for users to report deceptive content.
These actions show that regulators are starting to take a stance, acknowledging deepfakes as a separate category of harm, although they are not yet legally binding. These concepts should be codified in legislation, which could start from advisory notices to legally binding duties for platforms and creators.
Comparative Legal Responses: Lessons For India
In recent years, many countries have begun to deal with deepfakes by introducing various legislative measures. The United States Congress introduced a bill called the Deepfakes Accountability Act, which makes it clear when a video or image is fake, rather than stopping it entirely. The European Union Digital Services Act impose obligations on platforms to find and remove fake content that can cause harm to people. Instead of trying to import whole foreign systems, India might learn a few things from jurisdictions.
For example, the proposed Deepfakes Accountability Act in the United States exemplifies an idea to put watermarks on fake information and unambiguous branding of synthetic information, which protects freedom of expression while simultaneously allowing customers to recognise manipulated content. India might modify this strategy to fit its own needs without outrightly prohibiting the development of “synthetically generated information” and establish technical requirements under the proposed Digital India Act.
Similarly, the EU’s Digital Services Act requires big online platforms to evaluate and reduce systemic risks, including those resulting from manipulative content. This risk- based intermediary responsibility can be adopted by India, which would force platforms to make reasonable steps to identify and eliminate deepfakes while preserving satire, artistic expression and journalism.
Conclusion and Way Forward
The question posed in the title, “Can Indian Law Survive the Age of Synthetic Reality?”, is actually very simple. Indian law, as it stands, cannot properly address deepfakes. Indian law is not something that can be changed; it is always changing. It is meant to stop new problems from happening. The question is not if Indian law will survive; it is about having the courage to make the necessary changes to update it.
This essay explains that we must approach this issue in many ways. Defining deepfakes in the law while maintaining the right to free speech is important. Judges must have the freedom to interpret the laws as they see fit. Companies that own the websites must have accountability for deepfakes on their websites, and we need new tech funding. This would create a balance between freedom and safety. There is the capacity for Indian law, and all law, to be integrated with the phenomenon of deepfakes. To translate this vision into practice, the following measures can be approached:
- Dedicated deepfake provision: Enact a new Digital Crimes Act or a specific offence under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for the creation and dissemination of non-consensual deepfakes, inviting harsher punishments where kids and minors are targeted.
- Statutory definition and watermarking: Introduce a legal and statutory definition of “synthetically generated information” and mandate watermarking or labelling for AI-generated content.
- Platform obligations: Modify the IT Rules to put risk-based obligations on intermediaries, such as regular safety audits for particularly big platforms, quick grievance procedures, and proactive identification of dangerous deepfakes.
These actions will ensure that Indian law does not passively respond to deepfakes as an afterthought, but actively creates a regime capable of protecting the dignity of people in the age of synthetic reality.
* The author is a second-year law student at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow. The author may be contacted at yashjain.rmlnlu@gmail.com.
This blog reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of The Policy Chronicle.