The Supreme Court recently said that a judicial decision founded on Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated, non-existing judgments is not a mere error of reasoning but amounts to misconduct by the judge passing such an order.
The Bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe made the observation while taking cognisance of an order passed by a trial court in Andhra Pradesh, in which non-existent, fake judgments generated by AI were cited.
The Bench has decided to examine the issue in detail, particularly the consequences and accountability to be fixed for the citation of such imaginary AI-generated caselaws.
"At the outset, we must declare that a decision based on such non-existent and fake alleged judgments is not an error in the decision making. It would be a misconduct and legal consequence shall follow," the February 27 order said.
It has sought the response of the Attorney General for India, the Solicitor General of India and the Bar Council of India. Further, the Court has appointed Senior Advocate Shyam Divan as an amicus curiae to assist it in the matter.
The controversy is tied to a trial court order passed in a property dispute. The persons against whom the suit was filed (defendants) had objected to a report prepared by an Advocate Commissioner appointed by the trial court to inspect and note the physical features of the property.
The trial court passed an order in August 2025, dismissing the defendants' challenge to the Advocate Commissioner's report.
Notably, the trial court cited the following caselaws while dismissing this plea, namely:
"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."
However, the defendants argued that these caselaws did not exist at all. Rather, they were imaginary, AI-generated errors, they said. They filed a petition before the Andhra Pradesh High Court, questioning the correctness of the trial court's order and flagging the trial court's citation of imaginary cases.
The High Court too realized that the judgments cited in the trial court order were AI-generated. However, it eventually dismissed the defendants' petition on merits and affirmed the trial court's decision, after recording a word of caution against citing unverified AI-generated content.
This led the defendants to move the Supreme Court challenging the trial court order.
The top court opined that the manner in which the case was decided by the trial court raised an institutional concern.
“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 order records.
The Bench proceeded to order the trial court not to proceed further for now on the basis of the Advocate Commissioner's report, while the top court examines the larger issue of the trial court having cited AI-hallucinated caselaws.
“We take cognizance of the Trial Court deploying AI generated non-existing, fake or synthetic alleged judgments and seek to examine its consequences and accountability as it has a direct bearing on integrity of adjudicatory process,” the Court said.
The matter will be heard next on March 10.
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