AI in the Courtroom: Promise, Peril, and the Future of Indian Justice

The use of Artificial Intelligence in justice delivery has moved from a theoretical possibility to a practical reality, bringing both the promise of efficiency and the peril of fundamental error. Recent interventions by the Supreme Court of India have brought this tension into sharp focus, compelling a nationwide conversation on the rules of engagement between human judges and intelligent machines.

What recent events have brought AI in courts into focus?

Two specific cases in 2024 demonstrated that the risk of AI 'hallucinations' entering the official judicial record is no longer hypothetical. In April 2024, the Supreme Court set aside orders passed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in an insolvency case involving the airline SpiceJet. A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah found that the NCLT had relied on completely fictitious, AI-generated legal citations to arrive at its judicial determination. Earlier, on February 27, 2024, a different Supreme Court bench had addressed a similar issue. In the case of Apoorva Arora v. State of Uttar Pradesh, Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe observed that a trial court's reliance on AI-generated content could amount to judicial “misconduct.” The bench described the potential for such AI-induced miscarriages of justice as being akin to methyl isocyanate, the toxic gas behind the 1984 Bhopal tragedy— “invisible, insidious, and catastrophic by the time anyone notices” (Source: Supreme Court Oral Observations).

How is AI currently being used in the Indian judiciary?

The Indian judiciary, burdened by a pendency of over 50 million (5 crore) cases across all levels (Source: National Judicial Data Grid, July 2024), has cautiously adopted AI in strictly assistive roles. The official position, articulated by the Supreme Court's e-Courts Committee, is that AI should augment human intelligence, not replace it. This approach is exemplified by two flagship initiatives. The first is SUVAS (Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software), an AI-powered tool launched in 2019 for translating judicial documents from English into regional languages to improve accessibility. The second, SUPACE (Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency), was introduced in 2021 as a research assistant for judges. It processes case files to extract relevant facts and suggest precedents, but its output is intended only as a starting point for a judge's own analysis. The rationale is that such tools can reduce time spent on mechanical tasks, freeing up judicial resources for the core function of adjudication.