Non-Existent AI Generated Judgments A Menace Across The World: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court recently has observed that AI-generated judgments have become a "menace" which is rampant not just in India but across the world.

These observations were made by a bench comprising Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Vijay Bishnoi in a special leave petition filed by the Director of a Company, seeking to expunge the remarks made by the Bombay High Court.

The Director of Petitioner-Company, who appeared in-person through video conference, told the supreme court bench that he wished to press the present petition only with reference to certain observations made by the High Court against him in paragraph no 22 of the impugned judgment regarding giving citation of a non-existent judgment in Court.

In the said paragraph 22 of the judgment, the High Court had noted, "The Respondent has filed written submissions in February 2025 and April 2025. From the overall tenor of the written submissions and a few give-away features, such as green-box tick-marks, bullet- point-marks, repetitive submissions etc., this Court strongly feels that the submissions are prepared using an AI tool such as Chat GPT or alike. A strong pointer is seen from a reference made to one alleged caselaw "Jyoti w/o Dinesh Tulsiani Vs. Elegant Associates". Neither citation is given nor a copy of judgment is supplied by the Respondent. This Court and its law clerks were at pains to find out this caselaw but could not find. This has resulted in waste of precious judicial time. If an AI tool is used in aid of research, it is welcome; however, there is great responsibility upon the party, even an advocate using such tools, to cross verify the references and make sure that the material generated by the machine/computer is really relevant, genuine and in existence. This Court finds that the Respondent has simply filed written submissions by signing them without verifying its contents. This practice of dumping documents / submissions on the Court and making the Court go through irrelevant or non-existing material must be deprecated and nipped at bud. This is not assistance to the Court. This is a hurdle in swift delivery of justice. This Court will not take such practices kindly and it is going to result in costs. If an advocate is found to be indulging in such practice, then even stricter action of referring to Bar Council may follow."

High court had further directed the petitioner company to pay costs of Rs. 50,000/- to High Court Employees Medical Fund, within a period of 2 weeks and submit the proof of payment in the Registry.

Considering the prayer made before it, the Supreme Court on March 20, 2026 ordered, "Though, he tried to explain that he never cited that judgment, however, at the present we are not going into that issue. As a matter of indulgence, we expunge the remarks made in the aforesaid paragraph. However, the fact remains that this menace is rampant in all Courts now, not only in India rather throughout the world. Everyone needs to be careful about this. In fact, this Court is already seized of this matter on judicial side. With the aforesaid observations, the present Special Leave Petition is disposed of".

Earlier this month too, the Supreme court had flagged serious concerns over the use of AI generated judgments by a Trial Court saying that it has a direct bearing on integrity of adjudicatory process. A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe noted that the trial court's decision based on non-existent and fake alleged judgments could not be said to be an error in the decision making.

"This case assumes considerable institutional concern, not because of the decision that was taken on the merits of the case, but about the process of adjudication and determination," the bench noted while issuing notice to the Attorney General, Solicitor General and the Bar Council of India.

Notably, in the case before Court, the petitioners are the defendants in a suit filed by the respondents for injunction. Pending disposal of the suit, the Trial Court had appointed an Advocate Commissioner to note the physical features of the property. The petitioners challenged the report of the Advocate Commissioner by raising certain objections. The Trial Court, dismissed the objection and in the process, relied on certain decisions being: i) Subramani v. M. Natarajan (2013) 14 SCC 95, ii) Ramasamy (1071) 2 SCC 68, iii) Chidambaram Pillai v. SAL Lakshmi Devi v. K. Prabha (2006) 5 SCC 551 and iv) Gajanan v. Ramdas (2015) 6 SCC 223.

The petitioners challenged the orders passed by the Trial Court, inter alia, contending that the judgments referred to and relied on are non-existent and fake orders. The High Court considered the objection and realized that the judgments are Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated and after recording a word of caution proceeded to decide the case on merits and dismissed the civil revision petition affirming the decision of the Trial Court. Thus, the petitioners approached the Supreme Court.

Recently too a CJI Surya Kant led bench of the Supreme Court raised concerns over growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in drafting of petitions, relying on recent instances where lawyers cited judgments and quotations that either were found to be non-existent. “We have been alarmingly told that some lawyers have started using AI for drafting,” CJI Kant noted during a hearing.

Justice Nagarathna, also on the bench, recalled an instance where a fictitious judgment was cited and said, "There was a case of Mercy vs Mankind which does not exist". The judge further observed how actual supreme court judgment were cited but the quoted portions did not exist in the judgment.

Case Title: HEART AND SOUL ENTERTAINMENT LTD. vs. DEEPAK S/O SHIVKUMAR BAHRY

Bench: Justices Bindal and Vijay Bishnoi

Order Date: March 20, 2026