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Artificial Intelligence has moved from the periphery to the centre of legal practice. In legal research, document review, case summarisation and translation, AI now promises efficiencies which were unimaginable a decade ago. The Indian judiciary has been quick to effectively utilise them through e-filing, virtual hearings, digital case management etc. Yet the Supreme Court has been equally firm in its caveat. AI may aid the judicial process, but it can never supplant the judicial mind.
Against this backdrop, a recent Supreme Court judgment assumes significant importance. The appeal arose from insolvency proceedings initiated under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code against a corporate guarantor for a financial debt owed to a lending institution. The NCLT Mumbai admitted the application on 28 August 2024 for a claimed debt of Rs. 87.43 crore, and the NCLAT, New Delhi affirmed that order on 11 September 2025. The Appellant, the suspended director of the corporate debtor, demonstrated before the Supreme Court that the Tribunal had relied on six purported citations/judgments that were fake and non-existent or carried passages invented and falsely attributed to genuine judgments. The excerpted paragraphs from the judgments are not traceable to those judgments in law reports.
The Supreme Court did not accept the contention on trust. The Supreme Court independently verified the citations and confirmed the defects for itself. Fictitious case names, genuine citations attached to the wrong decisions, and fabricated passages traceable to no reported judgment were established. Pertinently, the Respondent bank filed an affidavit clarifying that its counsel had not cited or relied upon authorities/citations and that the Tribunal had sourced them through its own research. The Supreme Court noted that the fake and non-existent judgments escaped the scrutiny of the first statutory Appellate Tribunal.
The Supreme Court noted that there is certain trait in AI’s response, a tendency to generate non-existent, fake or hallucinated results when replying to a prompt. Fabricated precedents, the Supreme Court observed, is like the release of methyl isocyanate in the province of law and justice: invisible, insidious, and catastrophic by the time anyone notices. The Supreme Court deliberately invoked of the Bhopal tragedy. It laid down a rule of zero tolerance mode for producing, citing or using AI-generated precedents without verification and which amounts to misconduct on the part of an advocate, and it is an equally serious lapse for a judge to rely on such material. A decision so tainted is no decision in the eyes of the law and must be set aside, even if an iota of fabricated or hallucinated material enters the reasoning, because it subverts the sanctity of adjudication. The Court accordingly set aside both the orders restored the Section 7 application to its file, and directed the BCI to constitute a committee, frame guiding principles, and prescribe disciplinary consequences for such conduct.
The Court resolved to adopt AI in aid of adjudication while asserting and declaring total and absolute control over adjudication, with a human in the loop at every stage. Justice is not the mechanical application of rules but an exercise in reason, fairness and constitutional morality. AI cannot weigh the credibility of witness, read human conduct, reconcile competing constitutional values or exercise discretion. These remain fundamentally human faculties.
The future of the Indian judiciary therefore, lies not in replacing judges with machines but in deploying technology to reduce delay, widen access and strengthen research while the ultimate determination /adjudication always remains with an independent and impartial judge. Pooja Ramesh Singh is a timely reminder that innovation must remain subordinate to constitutional value, and that the future lies in AI-assisted adjudication, never AI adjudication. Technology may fasten the process, but only human wisdom and constitutional conscience can deliver justice.
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