Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asserted on Saturday that Artificial Intelligence (AI) should serve strictly as an assistant in judicial processes,not as decision-maker. His remarks come in the wake of troubling instances where AI-generated outputs have influenced real court cases,raising alarms about reliability of machine intelligence in legal contexts.
During a recent session,a Bench led by Justice P.S. Narasimha uncovered that a Tribunal had based its ruling on AI-generated verdicts that were fabricated. The Supreme Court has since adopted a stance of 'zero tolerance' towards uncritical reliance on AI, warning that such negligence could undermine the integrity of the judicial system .
Concerns about AI's role have been echoed by other justices,including B.V. Nagarathna and Dipankar Datta,who have reported encountering AI-generated inaccuracies in legal documents. One notable instance involved a fictitious case titled 'Mercy versus Mankind,' which was cited in a legal petition, highlighting the potential hazards of AI hallucinations in the courtroom.
Chief Justice Kant emphasized that the focus should not be on whether India should adopt AI technologies,but rather on ensuring legislative clarity and human oversight in their application . He stated, "The embracing exercise is already under way and cannot sensibly be resisted. It is whether we build legislative clarity and the human oversight that ensures these platforms widen access to justice rather than narrow it,for exactly the people least equipped to question an algorithm’s output."
In his address at a summit organized by the Indian Institute of Arbitration and Mediation,Kant outlined the appropriate boundaries for AI in the justice system. He acknowledged that while AI can assist in tasks such as triaging disputes, organizing evidence,or drafting initial translations, it must not cross the line into making decisions. "The moment it begins to weigh one party’s equities against that of another, it has stopped assisting and started deciding," he remarked,underscoring the limitations of current algorithms.
The Chief Justice's comments reflect growing recognition of the dual potential of AI in the legal field. He noted that the impact of digital dispute resolution and AI on access to justice could be both positive and negative,contingent on how these technologies are implemented. He stated,"The honest answer to whether digital dispute resolution and AI enhance or disrupt access to justice is that they will do both,depending on how deliberately we design their use."
Currently,technological advancements in the Supreme Court are restricted to aiding judges with legal research, summarizing cases, and translating judgments into regional languages. The Chief Justice reiterated that these tools are meant to be "deliberately assistive rather than adjudicatory," reinforcing the need for a careful approach to integrating AI into the judicial process.
