India's Supreme Court calls AI-hallucinated citations in trial court order "misconduct"

Feb 2026

India's Supreme Court stayed a property-dispute ruling after discovering the trial court judge had relied on non-existent, AI-generated case citations. An Andhra Pradesh junior civil judge admitted using an AI tool for the first time without verifying the outputs. The Supreme Court termed the reliance on fabricated judgments as "misconduct" with "a direct bearing on the integrity of the adjudicatory process." Separately, the Bombay High Court fined a litigant 50,000 rupees for filing AI-generated submissions citing the non-existent case "Jyoti vs. Elegant Associates." The Chief Justice flagged an "alarming trend" of AI-fabricated judgments including one titled "Mercy vs Mankind."