Delhi High Court Justice Prathiba M Singh has questioned the need for lawyers to immediately disclose their use of artificial intelligence (AI), observing that such a requirement could add to their compliance burden and eventually result in another set of standardised affidavits.
Her remarks assume significance amid the Supreme Court’s draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026, which propose mandatory disclosure when lawyers or litigants use AI to prepare pleadings, documents, submissions or evidence. The Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) has also recommended dropping the proposed disclosure requirement.
Justice Singh was speaking during a fireside chat with Senior Advocate J Sai Deepak on “The Future of ADR, AI and Legal Technology in the Digital Era” at the International ADR Conference, 2026, organised by Maadhyam.
Responding to a question on whether AI disclosure norms were necessary before an institutional framework was established, Justice Singh said such requirements could make lawyers’ work more difficult. She pointed to the existing technological and procedural requirements under the Commercial Courts Act and electronic filing systems, including document scanning, OCR and e-filing.
Justice Singh also noted that India’s adversarial legal system provides a degree of protection against inaccurate or fabricated AI-generated material, as opposing counsel can flag such errors before the court. At the same time, she stressed that AI use in legal practice was inevitable and should be accompanied by human verification.
She noted that AI will inevitably be used, warning against pushing lawyers to lie about using it. Instead, she advocated for adopting AI alongside human verification, cautioning that omitting human checks could prove disastrous.
She cited a tax matter in which a Goods and Services Tax department order relied on four judgments, three of which did not exist, resulting in the Delhi High Court setting aside the order. Justice Singh also referred to an appeal arising from a trial court judgment whose reasoning did not correspond with the pleadings. After the judgment was analysed by counsel, the High Court prima facie observed that it appeared to have been drafted using AI.
She emphasised that AI could assist judges and lawyers with research, summarisation and drafting, but could not replace human decision-making. Justice Singh also urged the Supreme Court to develop an AI platform exclusively for the judiciary, with judicial data remaining under institutional control rather than being uploaded to publicly available AI systems. She suggested that the judiciary could develop its own large language model, algorithms and controlled data infrastructure.
According to her, using public AI platforms for judicial information could raise serious concerns relating to privacy and confidentiality, particularly in matrimonial and criminal cases involving sensitive allegations.
On AI adoption in subordinate courts, Justice Singh said the district judiciary was not yet adequately equipped to adopt AI-based platforms. She suggested that existing digital and physical infrastructure should first be strengthened and stabilised.
She also highlighted the potential of technology to improve trial efficiency, particularly through affordable live transcription systems across the country, which, she said, could significantly speed up criminal trials.
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