Supreme Court flags the risks of using AI for drafting petitions

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) expressed grave concerns over the growing reliance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in drafting legal petitions.

A Bench of the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, and Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi said the “alarming” trend had resulted in the citing of non-existent or fictitious case laws in petitions.

In December 2025, the Chief Justice said the court was very conscious of the risks emanating from the indiscriminate use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in legal work. The court also made it clear that the judiciary did not want Artificial Intelligence to overpower the justice administration process.

At the time, the court was hearing a petition filed by Kartikeya Rawal highlighting the dangers of GenAI, which could create “hallucinations”, resulting in fictitious judgments, research material, and worse still, even work to perpetuate bias.

On Tuesday (February 17, 2026), the Bench said the use of AI for legal drafting was “absolutely uncalled for”. Justice Nagarathna recalled how a lawyer arguing before her Bench had recently cited a non-existent case law titled ‘Mercy vs Mankind’.

The judge said certain petitions quoted from non-existent portions in actual judgments. The Bench pointed out that easy means to do legal research should not be at the cost of accuracy and truth.

The Bench referred to how a case before another apex court Bench headed by Justice Dipankar Datta quoted judicial precedents which were non-existent.