The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence has transformed the creation, manipulation and dissemination of audio-visual information. Deepfakes, broadly understood as synthetic or manipulated audio, images and videos capable of presenting fabricated persons, statements or events as authentic, have consequently become a significant legal and socio-economic concern. Although synthetic media has legitimate applications in education, entertainment, accessibility, research and creative expression, its malicious use can facilitate impersonation, financial fraud, defamation, misinformation, electoral manipulation, identity theft, non-consensual intimate imagery and child exploitation. This paper examines a central research question: whether India’s existing legal and regulatory framework adequately addresses the distinct harms caused by malicious deepfakes while preserving constitutionally protected expression. It adopts a doctrinal and analytical approach to the Information Technology Act 2000, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 as amended in 2026, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, constitutional guarantees under Articles 14, 19 and 21, and relevant judicial developments concerning personality rights. The analysis finds that India now has an express regulatory framework for synthetically generated information, including intermediary obligations relating to unlawful synthetic content, prominent labelling and technical provenance mechanisms. However, legal protection remains dispersed across criminal, civil, evidentiary, data-protection and sector-specific regimes. Significant gaps persist in relation to electoral deception, cross-border investigation, attribution, authenticity of electronic evidence, rapid victim remedies and the coherent protection of personality rights. The paper therefore argues for a risk-based, harm-oriented and technology-neutral framework that differentiates legitimate synthetic expression from deceptive or malicious uses according to intent, foreseeable harm, scale of dissemination and intermediary involvement.