Legal Liability Of Artificial Intelligence In India: Challenges And Regulatory Framework
- IJLLR Journal
- Apr 21
- 1 min read
Sandal Khan, B.A. LL.B., Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), New Delhi, India.
ABSTRACT
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping India's socio-economic and legal landscape across sectors as varied as healthcare, judicial administration, financial services, and autonomous transportation. While the transformative potential of AI is widely acknowledged, its deployment simultaneously generates pressing questions of legal accountability that existing Indian law is ill-equipped to resolve. The present framework consisting principally of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and classical common-law doctrines of tort and product liability was conceived for a paradigm of identifiable human agency and does not adequately address the autonomous, self-adaptive character of modern AI systems. This paper employs a doctrinal and comparative methodology to interrogate the structural deficiencies of the prevailing legal order, to map the principal challenges in attributing liability for AI-induced harm, and to propose targeted legislative and institutional reforms. Comparative insights are drawn from the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act, 2024 and the United States' sector-specific regulatory architecture. The paper contends that India urgently requires a dedicated AI liability statute anchored in a risk- tiered classification system, complemented by mandatory algorithmic impact assessments and an independent regulatory authority. Without such intervention, the promise of AI-led development risks being realised at the cost of citizens' constitutional rights to equality, privacy, and dignity.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Legal Liability, Information Technology Act, Digital Personal Data Protection Act, Algorithmic Accountability, Product Liability, AI Regulation India
