Supreme Court Lawyers' Body Opposes Mandatory AI Disclosure in Draft AI Regulations
The Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) has opposed the disclosure requirement in the Supreme Court's draft AI regulation that would force lawyers to declare every use of AI tools in preparing pleadings.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
The SCAORA has opposed the disclosure requirement in the Supreme Court's draft AI regulation, calling it 'unworkable' and unjustified given existing professional codes. The association has proposed amending the existing SLP certificate to insert a targeted line certifying that all legal citations, judicial precedents, and statutory authorities relied upon in the petition have been per…
Imagine you're a lawyer, and you use a computer program to help you write a court document. The Supreme Court wants you to tell the judge every time you use that program, but the lawyers think it's a bad idea. They say it's too hard to do and that it's not fair because they're already responsible for making sure the document is correct.
Analysis
A $60B Vote of Confidence
The Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) has opposed the disclosure requirement in the Supreme Court's draft AI regulation that would force lawyers to declare every use of AI tools in preparing pleadings. The association has called the requirement 'unworkable' and unjustified given existing professional codes. The SCAORA has proposed amending the existing SLP certificate to insert a targeted line certifying that all legal citations, judicial precedents, and statutory authorities relied upon in the petition have been personally verified for accuracy. This, it says, would reinforce that under the Advocates Act, the lawyer is already fully responsible for their pleadings.
Hallucinations and the 'Black Box' Problem
SCAORA's technical critique flags 'four fundamental concerns' with AI's suitability for judicial use. On hallucinations, it invokes the Supreme Court's own warning in Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd., where the Court likened fabricated AI precedents to 'the release of methyl isocyanate in the province of law and justice: invisible, insidious, and catastrophic by the time anyone notices' and that 'it is necessary for Courts to adopt a zero-tolerance mode for producing, citing or using AI-generated precedents without verification'. On explainability, SCAORA notes that 'the explanation furnished is another output,' not 'a record of the actual internal process by which the output was generated.' It adds that no AI system 'is immune' from the Black Box paradox, since 'the output is generated from the interaction of a vast neural network' and 'there is nothing like fact A, legal principle B and conclusion C.'
Governance and Data
The report criticises the 'pyramid type of governance system' spanning the Apex Body, five Standing Committees, CoRE-AI, AI Committees, and an AI Content Verification Authority, warning this 'creates the possibility of repetitive evaluations of the same AI system' and makes it 'difficult to fix accountability.' On data, SCAORA warns that 'the data of millions of Indian citizens cannot be exposed to data centers of large language models controlled by trillion-dollar multinational corporations located outside India.' It further argues that Regulation 47's bare cross-reference to the DPDP Act is inadequate, since the Act and Rules are 'being brought into force in phases over eighteen months,' with several key obligations 'scheduled to become enforceable only on 13 May 2027.'
Key points
- The Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) has opposed the disclosure requirement in the Supreme Court's draft AI regulation.
- The SCAORA has proposed amending the existing SLP certificate to insert a targeted line certifying that all legal citations, judicial precedents, and statutory authorities relied upon in the petition have been personally verified for accuracy.
- SCAORA has flagged 'four fundamental concerns' with AI's suitability for judicial use, including hallucinations and the 'Black Box' problem.
- The report criticises the 'pyramid type of governance system' spanning the Apex Body, five Standing Committees, CoRE-AI, AI Committees, and an AI Content Verification Authority.
If the Supreme Court listens to the lawyers' concerns and revises the draft AI regulation, it could lead to a more efficient and effective use of AI in the judiciary. This could result in faster and more accurate court decisions, which would be beneficial for all parties involved.
If the Supreme Court doesn't revise the draft AI regulation and forces lawyers to disclose every use of AI tools, it could lead to a decrease in the use of AI in the judiciary. This could result in slower and less accurate court decisions, which would be detrimental to the justice system.
