The Indian government is unlikely to introduce a new, standalone law to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) at this stage and will instead use existing legal frameworks such as the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act and intellectual property laws, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary S Krishnan said on Tuesday, according to a report by The Week.
Speaking at Assocham’s AI Leadership Meet, Krishnan said the government’s position is to avoid fresh regulations unless it becomes unavoidable, stressing that excessive laws could slow innovation in a fast-evolving tech sector like AI.
Preference for existing laws over new regulations
“As it is, we are a country with many laws… So my own inclination always is to avoid putting in a new law, a new regulation, unless you absolutely have to. Try to see what we can do with existing law,” he said.
Krishnan said existing laws already address many AI-related concerns, including data use and ownership. “Between the provisions of the Intellectual Property Act and the newly notified Digital Personal Data Protection Act, a fair amount of issues relating to the use of AI are already covered,” he said.
He added that the government would continue to review the need for further safeguards as AI develops, but the priority would remain on “enabling pieces of regulation which would allow AI to develop.”
However, under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, publicly available personal data falls outside several consent requirements, allowing such data to be processed, including for training AI models, with limited protections available to users.
At the same time, Krishnan made it clear that the government would intervene if AI systems cause harm.
Focus on applied AI over global tech dominance
Outlining India’s broader approach to artificial intelligence, Krishnan said the country is not trying to compete globally on computing power or core AI models. Instead, the government is focusing on applying artificial intelligence on the ground to improve productivity.
He identified agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and finance as priority sectors where AI can assist human workers rather than replace them, and said productivity gains in these areas are critical to India’s goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047.
Digital India Act promised guardrails, but never materialised
Krishnan made these remarks as the government has repeatedly said since 2023 that it would address artificial intelligence under the proposed Digital India Act (DIA), a law meant to replace the two-decade-old Information Technology Act, 2000.
In May 2023, then Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said that the Digital India Act would contain a dedicated chapter on emerging technologies, including AI, and that the government would regulate such technologies through “guardrails” focused on user harm rather than prescriptive controls.
“What I said very clearly is that we intend to regulate AI to the prism of user harm, and we will create guardrails for AI,” Chandrasekhar had said during a stakeholder consultation in Mumbai.
However, despite repeated consultations and public statements, the government has not introduced the Digital India Act in Parliament or released any draft publicly since 2023. Over time, references to the DIA have largely disappeared from official AI-related announcements, with policymakers increasingly pointing instead to existing laws, advisories, and voluntary frameworks.
Shift from legislation to advisories and self-regulation
Since 2024, the government’s AI approach has moved further away from formal legislation. Senior officials have consistently said that India does not intend to regulate AI technology itself, but only certain applications if they cause harm.
Advertisements
In September 2024, MeitY Additional Secretary Abhishek Singh said, “Instead of trying to regulate the [Artificial Intelligence] technology, we are looking at regulating [its] applications,” citing risks such as deepfakes, misinformation and child sexual abuse material.
That same year, the ministry issued and then partially rolled back an advisory requiring government permission for under-tested AI models, after industry raised concerns that it could hurt startups. The episode highlighted the lack of a stable, predictable regulatory framework for AI.
By December 2024, the government openly acknowledged in Parliament that it was leaning toward a voluntary, self-regulatory approach, with industry body NASSCOM tasked with developing non-binding guidelines. In responses to multiple parliamentary questions, MeitY also said it had no data on AI-related privacy breaches, cyber fraud or misuse — underlining gaps in enforcement and oversight.
AI governance guidelines, but no binding rules
In November 2025, MeitY released the India AI Governance Guidelines under the IndiaAI Mission. At the launch, Krishnan said the government had taken a “conscious and deliberate approach of not leading with regulation and of making sure that every opportunity is provided to be made.”
Officials repeatedly stressed that the guidelines were not a regulation, carried no legal enforceability, and were meant to enable innovation while encouraging responsible behaviour. The framework relies on principles such as accountability, transparency and risk mitigation but stops short of defining legal liability or penalties.
Where this leaves AI regulation in India
Taken together, Krishnan’s latest remarks and the policy trail over the past three years indicate that India has effectively moved away from the idea of a comprehensive AI law, whether through the Digital India Act or a standalone statute.
Instead, AI governance in India currently rests on a patchwork of:
- The DPDP Act, 2023
- Intellectual property laws
- IT Rules and targeted amendments (such as content labelling)
- Advisories that can be revised or withdrawn
- Voluntary, industry-led guidelines
While the government maintains that it will intervene if AI causes harm, the absence of a clear statutory framework raises questions about enforcement, accountability, and regulatory certainty, especially as AI deployment expands across sensitive sectors.
For now, India’s AI policy appears guided less by legislation and more by incremental adjustments, with the long-promised Digital India Act remaining unintroduced and, in practice, sidelined.
Note: This story was updated at 6:25 pm on 17/12/2025. A paragraph was added to the second section to provide additional clarity.
Read More:
Support our journalism by subscribing
For YouSource link
