"Mercy vs Mankind": Top Court Flags Perils Of AI Use In Drafting Petitions

The Supreme Court today flagged an "alarming" trend of lawyers using Artificial Intelligence tools to draft petitions, leading to errors and inaccuracies.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice BV Nagarathna, and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a public interest litigation seeking guidelines on political speeches. The court noted that the petition was drafted hastily. It then remarked, "We are alarmed to reflect that some lawyers have started using AI to draft petitions. It is absolutely uncalled for."

Citing an example, Justice Nagarathna said a lawyer arguing before her once cited a "Mercy vs Mankind" case, which did not even exist. "Then some are citing real Supreme Court cases, but those quoted portions do not even exist in the judgment," she said. Attribution of fake quotes, she said, makes verification a major challenge and puts additional burden on judges.

The Chief Justice remarked that a similar matter came before Justice Dipankar Datta's bench, too. "All precedents cited in the petition never existed."

Justice Bagchi spoke about the decline in the art of legal drafting and said many special leave petitions now mostly comprise lengthy quotations from prior judgments, with little articulation of legal grounds. He referred to eminent lawyers such as Ashoke Kumar Sen, whose petitions were precise and accurate.

Careless use of AI has also become a challenge in high courts. The Bombay High Court recently fined a petitioner over an AI-generated incorrect citation.