'Disturbing rise in petitions being drafted with AI tools': Supreme Court expresses concerns

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern over a disturbing rise in petitions being drafted with artificial intelligence tools.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices B V Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi said that several such AI-generated pleas were now citing non-existent judicial decisions, raising serious questions about the integrity of legal drafting.

Expressing alarm after encountering fabricated citations like the imaginary case titled "Mercy vs Mankind", the court said, it recently came across this non-existent judgment while hearing a matter.

The bench also recalled a similar incident in the court of Justice Dipankar Datta, saying "not one but a series of such judgements were cited", all of which turned out to be fake.

"We are alarmed to reflect that some lawyers have started using AI to draft petitions. It is absolutely uncalled for," the bench said.

The bench cautioned that such practices not only mislead the court but also pose risks to the credibility of legal proceedings.

The court also pointed out that even when the cited judgements are genuine, some petitions contain "fake quotes" attributed to those verdicts, which forced judges to spend additional time verifying basic facts.

"It creates an additional burden on the part of the judges," the bench said.

The court made the observations while dealing with a plea filed by former Lucknow University professor Roop Rekha Verma.

The bench also rued over the fading quality of traditional legal drafting.

The court highlighted that many special leave petitions are overloaded with lengthy extracts from previous judgements, leaving little room for original reasoning or structured legal argumentation, sying that such practices weaken the clarity and integrity of legal submissions.