CJI Surya Kant reconstitutes the Supreme Court’s “Artificial Intelligence Committee”

On 10 December 2025, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant reconstituted the Supreme Court’s “Artificial Intelligence Committee,” underscoring the apex court’s growing focus on institutionalising the use of AI technologies across the Supreme Court and the subordinate judiciary. 

The newly constituted committee will be chaired by P. S. Narasimha — Judge of the Supreme Court of India. Its members include:

• Sanjeev Sachdeva, Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court;

• Raja Vijayaraghavan V., Judge of the Kerala High Court;

• Anoop Chitkara, Judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court;

• Suraj Govindaraj, Judge of the Karnataka High Court. 

In addition, the committee will have administrative and technical support: Mr. Anupam Patra (OSD Registrar – Technology, SC) will serve as Member-Secretary and Convenor, while Mr. Ashish J. Shiradhonkar, Member (Systems) of the SC’s e-Committee, has been designated as a “Special Invitee.” 

Mandate of the Committee: What it Means for the Judiciary

According to the public announcement, the reconstituted AI Committee is tasked with guiding the adoption, development, and deployment of AI-based tools across the Supreme Court and subordinate judiciary. 

Key aspects of its mandate likely include:

• Overseeing ongoing and future AI initiatives aimed at increasing efficiency in court processes — including case management, record maintenance, document processing, translation, and legal research.

• Ensuring responsible and ethical use of AI, with adequate human oversight, especially in view of concerns about AI “hallucinations,” mis-citations or fabricated precedents. As seen in a recent PIL hearing, the Court stressed that AI cannot replace human judgment and any output must be carefully verified. 

• Improving accessibility and transparency within the justice system — possibly allowing tools such as automated translation of judgments into vernacular languages, or AI-assisted case retrieval to help litigants, advocates, and courts. 

• Streamlining administrative and procedural operations, which could help reduce delays and pendency by optimising court workload, tracking old or priority cases (senior citizen, women, marginalized sections), and assisting e-Courts infrastructure. 

In short: the Committee’s role is not just to pilot AI tools — but to institutionalise a “judiciary-wide roadmap” for AI integration under human supervision.

Context & Why Now: AI in Indian Judiciary — Opportunities and Concerns

Growing push for technological adoption in courts

The judiciary in India has been exploring ICT (information & communication technology) solutions for years, notably through the e-Courts project, aimed at improving case-management, record digitisation, remote hearings, etc. The reconstitution of this AI Committee marks a significant step forward — from digitisation to “intelligent” judicial workflows. Legal experts have previously highlighted the potential of AI-based translation, summarisation, and case-retrieval tools, especially for under-resourced or lower courts. 

Moreover, as the judiciary handles massive case loads and backlogs, AI promises a way to improve efficiency and access to justice without overburdening human resources.

Risks, scepticism and need for safeguards

At the same time, the integration of AI into judicial processes has drawn criticism and caution. In a recent hearing — Kartikeya Rawal vs. Union of India (W.P.(C) No. 1041/2025) — the petitioner warned of AI-generated “fake” case laws being cited in court orders, which could undermine the integrity of justice. 

In response, the bench led by CJI Surya Kant emphasised that AI may assist but must not influence judicial decision-making. Judges and litigants must independently verify citations and AI-derived content; AI should remain a tool to support, not replace, human judgment.

Accordingly, in dismissing the PIL, the Court indicated that concerns over AI misuse are better addressed via administrative mechanisms — such as through the newly reconstituted AI Committee — rather than blanket judicial directives. 

This underscores the fine balance the judiciary intends to maintain: embracing innovation, while safeguarding due process, human oversight, and the rule of law.

Potential Impact: What This Could Mean for Litigants, Lawyers and Courts

If the Committee delivers effectively, the implications could be wide-ranging:

• Faster disposal of cases: AI-aided case-management, prioritisation (senior citizens, women, marginalized), automated docketing, reminders, etc., could significantly speed up court workflows.

• Greater access & inclusivity: Features like automated translation of judgments into regional languages, AI-assisted drafting or summarisation of judgments could help litigants and lawyers — especially in lower courts or remote regions — navigate the system more easily.

• Reduced burden on judiciary staff: Clerks, translators, reference staff, court-room stenographers — many tasks could be automated or assisted, allowing human resources to focus on core judicial work (analysis, hearing, reasoning).

• Transparency and record-keeping: Structured databases, AI-assisted analytics, and searchable repositories might improve transparency, reduce human error, and help track judicial trends, pendency, backlog, and access to justice metrics.

• Need for robust safeguards & training: Given the possibility of AI errors (e.g., hallucinated case law), it will be crucial to train judges, lawyers, court staff to verify AI outputs, and ensure human-in-the-loop at every critical decision point.

Challenges Ahead & What the Committee Must Address

The road ahead will not be smooth. Some of the challenges the Committee must navigate include:

• Accuracy & reliability of AI outputs: Legal reasoning, precedents, statutory interpretation require deep contextual understanding, and AI (especially generative AI) may produce plausible — but wrong — results. This raises risk of mis-citations, fabricated judgments, or faulty reasoning.

• Transparency & accountability: Use of AI must be transparent — litigants and lawyers should know if AI was used (e.g., for translation, summarisation), and should be given opportunity to verify or challenge AI-derived content.

• Bias, fairness and equity: Training data and design of AI tools must be carefully audited to avoid reinforcing systemic bias (social, regional, linguistic). Lower courts and marginalised litigants must not be unfairly disadvantaged.

• Infrastructure and digital divide: Many lower courts, remote districts may lack basic infrastructure (internet, digital records, scanning, computers) — applying AI uniformly could be challenging.

• Data privacy and security: Judicial data is sensitive. Use of AI must come with strict data-security protocols, encryption, access controls, especially if cloud-based AI platforms are used.

• Human resource training and capacity building: Judges, clerks, staff, lawyers must be trained to use AI tools responsibly — including identifying hallucinations, verifying AI-generated content, and ensuring adherence to professional and constitutional standards.

Significance of Reconstituting the AI Committee Now

Reconstituting the Committee at this juncture carries symbolic and practical significance:

• It signals the highest levels of the judiciary recognise AI’s potential as more than a “nice to have” — but as a tool central to the future of justice delivery.

• It marks an institutional commitment, not just ad-hoc experiments — a dedicated body with senior judges, administrative secretaries, and technology specialists to oversee and guide AI deployment.

• It offers a structured, consultative and transparent mechanism (rather than piecemeal or haphazard adoption), thereby reducing risk of misuse, bias or unaccountable automation.

• It reflects responsiveness to contemporary challenges — massive pendency, access to justice, language barriers, backlogs — which cannot be resolved solely through traditional human-resource expansion.

• Finally, it balances innovation with caution: by combining AI adoption with judicial oversight, training and accountability — thereby respecting the sanctity of human adjudication and constitutional principles.

Conclusion

The reconstitution of the Supreme Court’s “Artificial Intelligence Committee” by CJI Surya Kant represents a watershed moment in the evolution of India’s judiciary. It signals that AI is no longer a fringe experiment — but a central pillar in the future architecture of judicial justice delivery.

However, success will depend on how responsibly, transparently, and thoughtfully the committee steers this transformation. If done well, we may see significant improvements in efficiency, access, fairness and inclusivity. If done poorly — without safeguards or oversight — we risk undermining trust, fairness and the very integrity of judicial decision-making.

For stakeholders — litigants, lawyers, judges, technologists, and policymakers — this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge lies in building the right frameworks, infrastructure, and ethical guardrails; the opportunity lies in reimagining justice delivery for the 21st century. The new AI Committee must rise to that challenge.

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Anshul Goel

LegalMantra.net Team