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Informist, Monday, May 4, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – After incidents of lawyers using artificial intelligence tools to draft their petitions, cases of judges using the technology to draft judgments are coming to light. The Delhi High Court has prima facie found that a district judge in Saket used AI tools to draft orders. "The manner of drafting and the manner in which the text distinguishing the case laws is set out in the impugned judgement, prima facie, gives an impression that there is some AI (artificial intelligence) software which may have been used for the same," said a bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Justice Madhu Jain.

 

However, without further examination it cannot be conclusively said whether AI software was used by the judge concerned and whether the judgement was properly reviewed thereafter, the bench said. But if non-existent propositions are attributed to judgments, it is "a matter of concern", it said. The high court has now requisitioned the trial court's record and listed the matter for hearing on Aug. 20.

 

This is not the first time lower court judges have been pulled up for using AI. In March, the Supreme Court took cognisance of a trial court order relying on non-existing verdicts that were generated with the help of AI. The top court said a decision based on such fake judgments would not be just an error in decision making but would amount to misconduct. The court further said the incident was a matter of "institutional concern" and fake AI-generated judgments have a direct bearing on the integrity of the adjudicatory process.

 

Lawyers have been repeatedly pulled up by courts for using AI in their petitions. In February, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant had highlighted the issue of lawyers submitting petitions drafted with the help of AI containing fake case citations. "We are alarmed to reflect now some of the lawyers have started (using) AI to draft. It is absolutely uncalled for," the chief justice had said. Justice B.V. Nagarathna, who was also on the bench, had said that there were instances wherein the citation was correct but fake quotes were attributed to the judgment, creating an additional burden for judges to sift the genuine from the fake. Earlier, the Bombay High Court had imposed a fine on a litigant for citing fake AI-generated citations. 

 

In the current case, the Delhi High Court stayed the district judge's order asking SNV Aviation Pvt. Ltd., which runs Akasa Air, to pay INR 10.88 million to ABS Tour and Travels as damages for cancelling bookings made by the latter for the festive season. The district judge's order will be stayed subject to a deposit of INR 2 million by SNV Aviation with the high court's registrar general. The court said the entire cost of the tickets could not have been awarded as loss of profit.

 

SNV Aviation, the petitioner, had argued that the district judge's verdict was drafted with the use of AI software, which was evident from non-existent propositions of law attributed to actual case laws that have been set out in the judgment. The petitioner said the case laws cited by the judgment have been distinguished using artificial intelligence software. Non-existent propositions of law were relied upon by the district court, the company said.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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