Supreme Court Declines Plea Seeking Guidelines On Ethics, Transparency In AI-Based Surveillance

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a plea seeking framing of binding guidelines on ethics and transparency in AI-based surveillance and content moderation.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana heard a petition filed by advocate Narendra Kumar Goswami.

Goswami told court today that he wished to press one of the prayers made in the petition, which sought a direction to the Centre to file an affidavit disclosing all existing and proposed high-risk Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems used by the ministries or agencies in welfare, policing, surveillance and content regulation.

"Send your writ petition as a representation. We are not the experts. It is a highly technical issue and it is in policy domain," the bench said while refusing to pass orders.

"As far as Supreme Court is concerned we have very effective guidelines when it comes to AI...we are very well protected..", the CJI added.

Goswami sought a direction to the Centre to constitute a high-powered expert committee to frame "binding guidelines on AI ethics, mandatory algorithmic impact assessments and bias audits, transparency in AI-based surveillance and content moderation, human-in-the-loop oversight for all high-risk governmental AI systems, and data protection safeguards..."

The plea also sought a direction to the Centre and others to conduct and make public within six weeks a comprehensive algorithmic impact assessment and independent bias audit of all existing AI systems deployed in welfare allocation, predictive policing, facial recognition and content moderation, and to disclose the complete inventory of such systems.

It also sought a direction to the Centre to take steps to enact a comprehensive parliamentary legislation regulating the development and deployment of AI by the State, consistent with the guidelines framed by the apex court.

The Supreme Court recently passed similar orders directing the Union of India to consider a representation by Advocate NK Goswami seeking a mechanism for urgent reporting and URL-specific disabling of access in India to content including threats of physical violence, doxing, unauthorized disclosure of private details and non-consensual AI-generated content.

The PIL sought a direction to the government authorities to consider a representation which sought a constitutionally compliant mechanism for urgent reporting, preservation, legal/judicial review and URLspecific disabling of access within India of cases involving specific threats of physical violence, sexual violence or death; doxing creating reasonable apprehension of harm; unauthorized disclosure of private details, photographs, school details, location data or identity markers of minor children; non-consensual intimate, morphed, synthetic or AI-generated content; non-consensual deepfake or digitally manipulated impersonation causing and immediate grave harm to safety, dignity, livelihood or reputation.

As an interim measure, the PIL sought that aggrieved persons be allowed to approach the jurisdictional court, High Court or any other designated duty Court for URL-specific relief. Goswami also sought reliefs qua preservation of any content complained about.

Case Title: NARENDRA KUMAR GOSWAMI Vs UNION OF INDIA

Bench: CJI Kant, Justice Bagchi and Justice Mohana

Hearing Date: August 13, 2026