Content

1. A landmark law in 2013, it needs a spine in 2025
2. Decoding personality rights in the age of AI

A landmark law in 2013, it needs a spine in 2025

Why is it in News?

• Chandigarh case where a college professor was terminated after ICC inquiry under POSH Act (2013) — rare instance of decisive, time-bound action.
• Complaint (Sept 2024) proved sexual harassment, signalling institutional accountability but also revealing systemic gaps in POSH implementation in higher-education spaces.
• Case has reignited debate on consent, power imbalance, evidence standards, timelines, and institutional hesitation in POSH processes.

Relevance

GS2 – Governance / Social Justice

• Workplace dignity and gender justice as part of India’s constitutional mandate (Art. 14, 15, 21).
• Institutional accountability: functioning of ICC, procedural fairness, grievance redressal.
• Gaps in regulatory architecture: timelines, coordination, evidentiary standards.

GS2 – Polity / Law Reform

• POSH’s statutory limitations vs. evolving forms of harassment (emotional, digital, relational manipulation).
• Need for clearer definitions, informed consent, multi-institution coordination, and digital forensics.
• Revisiting malicious complaint clause and survivorship-friendly processes.

GS1 – Society

• Power asymmetry in academia; hierarchical vulnerabilities in mentor–student relationships.
• Social stigma, delayed reporting, emotional fatigue as barriers to justice.
• Importance of gender sensitisation and behavioural-pattern recognition.

Practice Question

• “Despite being a progressive law, the POSH Act, 2013 remains structurally weak in addressing modern forms of workplace harassment.” Analyse with reference to recent higher-education cases.(250 Words)

Basics

• POSH Act, 2013 enacted to prevent, prohibit, and redress sexual harassment at the workplace; mandates Internal Complaints Committees (ICC).
• Applies to all workplaces, including universities, colleges, research institutions.
• Sexual harassment definition includes unwelcome physical, verbal, non-verbal conduct, quid pro quo, hostile environment.
• Timeline: complaint must be filed within 3 months (extendable by ICC).

Conceptual Gaps in the Law

• Consent vs Informed Consent
  • Act does not recognise “informed consent”; ignores emotional manipulation, authority-based persuasion, or information asymmetry.
  • In campuses and workplaces, earlier “consent” becomes invalid once manipulation surfaces; Act fails to capture such relational exploitation.
• Emotional & Psychological Harassment
  • Law primarily recognises explicit acts; emotional coercion, grooming, betrayal, and manipulation fall outside statutory scope.
  • Educated perpetrators exploit what leaves “no evidence,” operating in legal grey zones.

Procedural Flaws Exposed by the Case

• Three-Month Limitation Period
  • Survivors experiencing coercion/manipulation take longer to recognise harassment.
  • In universities (multi-year engagement), evidence or realisation surfaces later; strict timeline empowers perpetrators.
• Fear of ‘Malicious Complaint’ Clause
  • Provision meant as a safeguard ends up intimidating genuine complainants, discouraging delayed reporting.
• Terminology Diluting Seriousness
  • Calling accused as “respondent” softens gravity, unlike criminal law.
  • Same conduct outside workplace is a cognisable offence; workplace label cannot trivialise harm.

Investigative and Evidentiary Challenges

• Vague Definitions
  • Burden of proof shifts heavily to women.
  • Harassment usually occurs as a pattern, not an isolated act; ICCs often dismiss cases for lack of direct evidence.
• Need for Behavioural Assessment Tools
  • Anonymous student feedback, corroborative testimonies, pattern recognition essential.
  • ICC should read circumstantial evidence, social behaviour patterns, informal networks.
• Digital Evidence Gap
  • Technology allows ephemeral messages, disappearing media, encrypted chats.
  • ICCs lack technical training; POSH lacks protocols for digital forensics, leaving cases unproven despite real digital harassment.

Inter-Institutional Blind Spot

• No mechanism to handle misconduct across multiple campuses, collaborations, conferences, visiting faculty roles.
• Repeat offenders evade accountability due to institutional silos; Act silent on sharing information or joint proceedings.

Institutional Barriers

• Procedural delays, institutional hesitation, fear of controversy, and lack of sensitisation cause secondary victimisation.
• Women face emotional fatigue, reputational risks, power imbalance, especially in academia where mentor-student hierarchies shape vulnerability.

Needed Reforms 

• Extend or remove three-month limitation period.
• Recognise informed consent, emotional coercion, digital harassment within statutory definitions.
• Standardised digital evidence protocols and legal–technical training for ICC members.
• Enable inter-institutional coordination, especially for academia.
• Strengthen role clarity, confidentiality norms, survivor-centric processes.
• Replace chilling clauses (“malicious complaint”) with nuanced safeguards.

Conclusion

• Chandigarh case is a rare success, but it exposes structural gaps: narrow definitions, procedural rigidity, digital blind spots, and institutional hesitancy.
• Without reforms, POSH remains strong on paper but weak in implementation, especially in universities where power asymmetry and delayed recognition are common.
• The Act needs clearer language, extended timelines, recognition of emotional/digital abuse, and stronger investigative frameworks to deliver consistent, empathetic justice.

Decoding personality rights in the age of AI

 Why it is in News?

• Actors Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan have sued Google and YouTube in the Delhi High Court for hosting AI-generated deepfake videos depicting them in fabricated, often explicit scenarios.
• Petition alleges violation of personality rights (name, image, likeness, voice), reputational harm, commercial loss, and seeks future AI-training safeguards.
• Case spotlights India’s legal vacuum on AI-enabled impersonation and the rising challenge of deepfake abuse across platforms.

Relevance

GS2 – Governance / Regulation of Technology

• Rising legal vacuum in regulating AI-enabled impersonation, deepfakes, and identity misuse.
• Intermediary liability, safe-harbour limits, and absence of a dedicated Personality Rights framework.
• Constitutional dimensions under Article 21 (privacy, dignity).

GS3 – Cybersecurity / Emerging Tech

• Deepfakes as threats to trust, authenticity, national information integrity.
• Need for AI watermarking, provenance logs, dataset consent, and high-risk classification.
• Comparative global models: EU (dignity-based), US (publicity right), China (strict synthetic content rules).

GS1 – Society / Ethics

• Ethical issues: autonomy, consent, posthumous identity, commodification of persona.
• UNESCO’s rights-based framework for human-centric AI.
• Manipulation, misinformation, reputational harm, and psychological effects.

Practice Question

• “The rise of deepfake technologies has exposed a critical gap between India’s constitutional guarantees of dignity and the absence of a statutory personality-rights regime.” Discuss with global comparisons.(250 Words)

Personality Rights

• Protects control over a person’s name, image, likeness, voice, signature, gestures, persona.
• Origin: Common law doctrines of privacy, dignity, and unjust enrichment.
• Economic dimension: Prevents unauthorised commercial exploitation.
• Moral dimension: Upholds individual autonomy, honour, and human dignity.
• Enforcement mechanisms: tort law, passing off, privacy claims, IP principles (copyright/trademark analogies).

Personality Rights Strain and AI era

• Deepfakes and generative models rapidly replicate faces/voices, making unauthorised impersonation easy and scalable.
• Blurs lines between authenticity vs. syntheticidentity, enabling:
  • misinformation,
  • harassment and explicit content,
  • commercial misappropriation,
  • erosion of public trust.
• AI models often train on scraped internet data without consent, leading to use of celebrity likeness in outputs.

India’s Legal Position (Hybrid Model)

1. Constitutional Basis

• Personality rights derive from Article 21 (privacy, dignity); affirmed in Puttaswamy (2017).

2. Key Judicial Precedents

• Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi (2022): court recognised personality rights and restrained unauthorised commercial use.
• Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India (2023): prohibited AI-generated recreations of Kapoor’s face/voice and misuse of “Jhakaas”.
• Arijit Singh v. Codible Ventures (2024): Bombay HC restrained AI cloning of his voice.

3. Statutory Gaps

• No codified personality rights statute.
• IT Act 2000 + 2021/2024 Intermediary Guidelines → address impersonation, harmful deepfakes, takedown duties.
• Enforcement issues:
  • anonymity of creators,
  • cross-border platforms,
  • absence of explicit liability for AI training datasets,
  • reactive takedown rather than preventive obligations.

Comparative Global Framework

United States (Property–Centric Model)

• “Right of Publicity”: heritable, assignable property right.
• Haelan Labs v. Topps (1953) established monetisation of identity.
• Tennessee’s ELVIS Act (2024): bans unauthorised AI use of voice/likeness.
• Character.AI sued for bots generating harmful outputs; First Amendment defence rejected.

European Union (Dignity–Centric Model)

• GDPR requires consent for processing biometric data.
• EU AI Act (2024): deepfakes labelled high-risk → mandatory transparency, watermarking.

China

• Beijing Internet Court (2024): synthetic voices must not mislead users.
• Voice actor awarded damages for AI-replicated voice sold without consent.

Academic Proposals

• Westkamp et al. (2025): expand rights to include style, persona, aesthetic signatures.
• Scholars propose global harmonisation, high-risk categories, and explicit prohibitions on deceptive AI impersonation.

Ethical Debates

• AI threatens autonomy, authorship, posthumous identity.
• UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI (2021) → human-centric, rights-based approach.
• Concerns:
  • use of dead artists’ voices,
  • non-consensual explicit deepfakes,
  • AI becoming quasi-author,
  • risks in granting AI legal personhood (Forrest 2023: human rights dilution).

Key Problems

• No statutory definition of personality rights.
• No binding obligations for AI watermarking, provenance tracking, dataset consent.
• Weak intermediary liability and safe-harbour loopholes.
• Lack of cross-border cooperation given global AI models.

Way Forward

• Enact a Personality Rights Act: define rights, remedies, licensing, posthumous scope.
• Mandate:
  • watermarking and provenance logs for all synthetic content,
  • compulsory consent for training datasets,
  • strict liability for deceptive deepfakes,
  • rapid takedown + penalties.
• Create an AI Ombudsman + high-risk AI registry.
• Global alignment using UNESCO standards.
• Public digital literacy on AI harms.