Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary: India’s Digital Leap

19.12.2025

Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary: India’s Digital Leap

Context

In December 2025, the Union Ministry of Law and Justice informed Parliament that AI-based tools are being integrated into the e-Courts Phase-III project (with an outlay of ₹7,210 crore). The focus is on using technology to enhance administrative efficiency, reduce case pendency, and improve access to justice while ensuring AI serves only as a support system and not a replacement for human judges.

About Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary

What it is?

It refers to the integration of technologies like Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) into the judicial workflow.

• Primary Role: Decision-support, case-flow management, and automated transcription.
• Secondary Role: Improving citizen-facing services through chatbots and multilingual translation.

Key Initiatives Taken:

• LegRAA (Legal Research Analysis Assistant): Developed by the NIC, this tool assists judges in document analysis, identifying legal precedents, and summarizing complex case files.
• SUPACE (Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court Efficiency): An experimental AI portal that collects and analyzes relevant facts and laws, making them available to judges to accelerate the decision-making process.
• SUVAS (Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software): An AI-powered translation tool that has already translated over 31,000 judgments into regional Indian languages to bridge the linguistic divide.
• Digital Courts 2.1: A specialized application for judges that features SHRUTI (AI speech-to-text for dictating orders) and PANINI (integrated translation).
• Defect Identification Tool: Developed in collaboration with IIT Madras, this ML tool helps the Supreme Court Registry automatically identify defects in electronic filings.

Benefits of AI Integration

• Efficiency & Speed: Automates routine tasks like scheduling, document verification, and metadata extraction, allowing judges to focus on core legal reasoning.
• Reducing Backlog: AI-driven "predictive analytics" can identify potential bottlenecks in case-flow and suggest prioritization for time-sensitive matters.
• Transparency: Live transcription (as seen in Constitution Bench hearings) and digital evidence recording through Nyaya Shruti ensure an auditable and transparent record of proceedings.
• Accessibility: Multilingual judgment portals allow common citizens to read court orders in their native languages.

Challenges and Ethical Concerns

• Algorithmic Bias: Since AI is trained on historical data, it may inadvertently perpetuate existing societal or legal biases, leading to "disparate treatment."
• Hallucinations & Accuracy: Generative AI can sometimes create "fictitious" precedents or legal citations (hallucinations), necessitating strict human verification.
• Privacy & Security: Handling sensitive legal data requires robust frameworks under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023.
• Lack of Transparency: The "black box" nature of some AI models makes it difficult for litigants to understand the rationale behind a tech-supported recommendation.
• Judicial Independence: There are concerns that over-reliance on AI "predictions" could influence a judge’s independent discretion.

Way Forward

• Phased Roadmap: The government has allocated ₹53.57 crore specifically for "Future Technological Advancements" to ensure a controlled and secure pilot-based rollout.
• Human-in-the-Loop: Developing a regulatory framework where AI outputs are always subject to final human oversight and manual verification.
• Capacity Building: Specialized training for judges, lawyers, and court staff to understand both the capabilities and the ethical limitations of AI tools.
• Standardized Guidelines: Formulation of uniform operational rules by High Courts to govern the use of AI in local jurisdictions.

Conclusion

The integration of AI into the Indian judiciary is a transformative step toward a "Viksit Bharat" by 2047. While the technology offers a potent solution to the crisis of case pendency, its deployment must remain "human-centric"—ensuring that the "soul of justice" remains in human hands while the "machinery of justice" is powered by AI.