What the Supreme Court Is Doing with AI

 

What the Supreme Court Is Doing with AI

1. Deployment for case-management, transcription & translation

• The Court has started deploying AI/ML tools for activities like transcription of oral arguments (especially in Constitution Bench matters), and for translating judgments into vernacular languages.
• For example, the translation of SC judgments into Hindi and other regional languages is ongoing.
• The Law Ministry reported that “no AI-/ML-based tools are being used by the Supreme Court in decision-making processes, as of now”.

2. The “SUPACE” initiative

• The SC launched the system called SUPACE (Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Courts Efficiency). It is designed to assist judges/researchers by analysing case facts and identifying possible precedents.
• But the Court has made it explicit that the system will not replace judicial decision-making. CJI S. A. Bobde emphasised that while AI can assist, “we are not going to let AI spill over to decision-making”.

3. Judicial views on AI’s role and risks

• Several SC judges have publicly commented on AI’s potential and pitfalls.
• Justice Hima Kohli noted AI is a “game-changer” for legal practice, but stressed that human values, fairness and human judgement remain vital.
• Justice B. R. Gavai warned of specific dangers such as AI-generating fake judgments/citations, cautioning that lawyers may rely on them mistakenly.
• Justice Vikram Nath remarked that “AI cannot substitute human intelligence in justice”; machine assistance is fine, but human conscience/empathy remain indispensable.

Key Legal & Ethical Safeguards from the SC

• The Court stresses human discretion remains central: AI is a tool, not a decision-maker.
• Transparency and accountability: judges caution about reliance on AI outputs without critical human verification (e.g., fake citations).
• Accessibility: AI translation and transcription improve access to justice by making court proceedings and judgments more comprehensible to people in regional languages.

Why This Matters for “AI & Law” in India

• The SC’s approach provides a use-case model: how a top court can integrate AI to enhance efficiency while still safeguarding judicial autonomy and fairness.
• It highlights the dual challenge: Exploit AI’s capacity (speed, pattern-recognition, language processing) and ensure it doesn’t undermine the rule of law (bias, opacity, dehumanisation).
• The SC’s public remarks provide a normative stance: machines assist, but humans decide; technology must serve justice, not replace it.

Some Limitations & Open Questions

• While the SC has adopted AI tools for support functions, the Court has not yet used AI for judicial decision-making.
• The risk of over-reliance remains: as judges warn, AI can output invented or incorrect citations. The legal community must develop protocols to check AI outputs.
• Questions around bias, algorithmic transparency, and liability in case an AI tool leads to an error remain largely untested in the Indian context.
• How AI’s usage will scale across all courts (not just the SC) and how safeguards will be standardised remains an open field.