India’s rapid digitalization, driven by initiatives like Digital India, Aadhaar-linked services, fintech expansion, and pervasive social media use, has led to an exponential increase in cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled crimes. The National Crime Records Bureau reported 428,278 cybercrime cases in 2022, marking a 24.4% increase from 2021. However, the core legal framework governing cyberspace continues to be the information Technology Act, 2000 a statute primarily designed to facilitate e-commerce and electronic records rather than tackle complex contemporary cyber threats. This research paper argues that Indian cyber law is structurally backward, fragmented, and riddled with substantive and institutional loopholes that undermine effective prevention, investigation, and adjudication of cyber offences. Through doctrinal and analytical study of statutory provisions, landmark case law including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India and Justice K.S. Putt swamy v. Union of India, official NCRB reports, and empirical data from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, this paper identifies key gaps: narrow and outdated offence definitions excluding deepfakes, AI-driven fraud, and cryptocurrency crimes; inadequate penalties averaging only three years imprisonment for serious offences; overlapping and conflicting provisions with the Indian Penal Code; weak intermediary liability standards under Section 79; and absence of a comprehensive cybersecurity statute. It further highlights enforcement deficits, including conviction rates below 10% nationally, limited cyber forensics capacity with only 23 operational laboratories nationwide, and uneven specialization among law enforcement and judiciary. The paper examines emerging challenges posed by artificial intelligence-driven fraud schemes worth over Rs. 1,200 crores annually, deepfakes targeting thousands of victims, cryptocurrency-enabled scams exceeding Rs. 6,000 crore per year, and cross-border cyber operations that remain largely unaddressed. The conclusion proposes comprehensive legislative, institutional, and policy reforms, including a dedicated Cybersecurity and Digital Rights Act, clearer offence definitions with proportionate penalties, specialized cybercrime infrastructure with dedicated cyber courts, and stronger victim-centric mechanisms including compensation funds and expedited redressal systems, to align India’s legal regime with the realities of the digital age.