The Supreme Court of India issued judgment in Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd. (Civil Appeal No. 11950 of 2025, 2026 INSC 668) on 2 July 2026. The case arose from proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the appellate tribunal, both of which issued decisions citing judicial precedents that did not exist. The Supreme Court set aside both tribunal judgments in their entirety on final appeal.
The tribunals had relied on case citations generated by an AI tool through hallucination: the production of plausible but false content presented as binding precedent. The Court identified no specific statutory provision as the ground of invalidity. The ground was a constitutional due process principle: a judicial or quasi-judicial decision must rest on authentic legal authority. The Court held that any decision founded on fake or hallucinated AI-generated material is unsustainable in law and must be set aside. It also declared a resolve to use AI in case management while maintaining absolute human control over adjudication at every stage.
Companies in insolvency and restructuring proceedings before the NCLT, creditors, and corporate debtors must scrutinize tribunal-issued decisions for reliance on AI-generated citations. Counsel appearing before Indian tribunals must independently verify every cited authority before relying on it in written arguments. Parties who identify an adverse ruling based on fabricated citations have a constitutional basis to seek annulment on due process grounds through appeal or revision.
The ruling does not create an AI-specific statutory prohibition in Indian law, as no such legislation currently exists. The judgment adds to precedent in multiple jurisdictions addressing AI hallucinations in litigation and follows earlier judicial censures in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Supreme Court did not prescribe technical standards for AI tools used in legal research, leaving compliance to existing professional conduct rules and tribunal procedural regulations.
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