India's AI Governance Guidelines

India has formally moved to regulate deepfakes and AI generated content by notifying the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026.

On June 3, 2026, the Supreme Court of India’s AI Committee released preliminary draft of the Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Courts, 2026 (“The Draft”). This marks a shift from scattered experiments with AI tools for translation, transcription, research and case management. With over 93,000 pending matters as of March 2026, the guidelines aim to ease processes for officials and citizens. AI could help reduce backlogs through automated cause-list preparation, transcription, research, and defect scrutiny, but its use also raises serious concerns.

The Supreme Court of India, through notice dated 03.06.2026, has published the draft Regulations for use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026 (“Draft AI Regulations”). Comments and suggestions from all stakeholders and the general public are invited on the Draft AI Regulations by 20.06.2026

Between May and August 2026, AI regulation has continued to develop rapidly, with a focus on accountability, transparency, human oversight and protection against AI-related harms.

In a rare use of its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court heard a curative petition filed by DMRC, challenging an earlier order that had upheld the arbitral award. The judgment brings finality to a decade-long contractual dispute that began in 2013 with arbitration proceedings.

In a seismic event that has rattled the foundations of India's cryptocurrency landscape, WazirX, the nation's largest cryptocurrency exchange, suffered a devastating cyberattack that resulted in the theft of over $240 million in investor funds.

On May 21, 2025, the NPCI introduced new guidelines to streamline the Unified Payments Interface ("UPI") and its Application Programming Interface ("APIs"), effective August 1, 2025.

Cybersecurity regulation in India has, until now, largely spoken to the entity that suffers the breach. The 2022 CERT-In Directions issued under Section 70B of the Information Technology Act, 2000 fixed a six-hour reporting clock on the organisation that detects an incident. The new Guidelines flip the lens onto the entity upstream of that breach, the OEM or technology provider that built the product in the first place. For the first time, vendors supplying software, firmware, cloud platforms, or APIs into India carry direct, time-bound, and independently verifiable obligations of their own and not obligations that are merely passed through a customer contract, but obligations CERT-In itself may enforce.

On October 27, 2025, OpenAI published a report on its platform stating that approximately 0.15% of the ChatGPT users exhibit suicidal thoughts or psychosis and seek advice on way and methods of self-harm.

On 25 May 2026, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), released its “Blueprint for Reducing Exposure and Defending against AI-Assisted Vulnerabilities Exploitation in Digital Infrastructure” (Blueprint).

The Supreme Court vide its recent order dated September 17, 2026 (“Order”) in the matter of Ayesha Jain v. Amity University, Noida & Ors., [W.P. (C) No. 531/2025] came down heavily on the manner of operation of universities and issued a series of stringent directions requiring greater disclosure by universities, including with respect to their finances, admissions, staffing, grievance redressal and regulatory compliance

The Delhi High Court, in ANI Media Pvt. Ltd. v. OpenAI OpCo LLC, has delivered India's first significant ruling on the application of copyright law to the training and functioning of large language models ("LLMs").

India's labour law landscape underwent a significant transformation on November 21, 2025 with the Ministry of Labour and Employment bringing into force 4 new labour codes ...

The State Through Central Bureau of Investigation vs T. Gangi Reddy @ Yerra Gangi Reddy CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 37 OF 2023

Publicity rights play an important role in India based on the culture of celebrity worship and the importance of the name, image, and likeness of sports, television and media personalities, political figures, musicians, etc.

India has slowly moved away from the 29 central labour legislations with consolidation and introduction of the four Labour Codes (which came into force on November 21, 2025) with the objective of modernising and simplifying the regulatory landscape.

India is witnessing a growing debate on whether children should have unrestricted access to social media. Concerns relating to mental health, cyberbullying, addictive online behaviour and harmful content have prompted discussions on introducing age-based restrictions for minors.

On September 16, 2026, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal of the Ministry of Labour & Employment (“L&E Ministry”) to increase the wage ceiling for mandatory coverage under the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation ("EPFO") from INR 15,000 per month to INR 25,000 per month (“Amendment”).

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ("MEIT") along with the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team ("CERT") vide Notification No. 20(3)/2022-CERT-In...

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ("MeitY") has notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026 ("IT Amendment Rules 2026") on 10 February 2026, effective from 20 February 2026.