Gujarat High Court permission to use AI to outline and improve judgments raises concerns over data protection

By Yagya Vir Singh

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has opened doors for use of Artificial Intellengence tools in drafting judgments by judges, raising concerns over leak of confidential and personal information for which litigants would be left to fend for themselves.

While the Supreme Court uses AI tools for research and administrative purposes only, the Gujarat High Court policy unveiled on Saturday permits use of such tools for formulation of “structural outline or framework for a judgment” and improvement of draft judgments for clarity.

The High Court, being aware of fallouts, has proposed regular training to ensure all users maintain an adequate level of AI literacy. But for now, the judges can start using AI tools subject to being personally responsible for “every order, judgment, and observation issued in their name”.

The policy specifically permits judges to use AI tools for “generating a structural outline or framework for a judgment or opinion, subject to full judicial review and rewriting” and also for “improving the language, structure, and clarity of draft orders, judgments, and opinions”. Though this is subject to the substantive legal analysis and reasoning being entirely of the judge, the question is how do we ensure this.

The High Court has stressed that violation of any provision of this Policy shall be treated as misconduct and shall attract appropriate action including departmental or disciplinary proceedings under applicable service rules.

However, the bigger problem is leak of confidential digital and other personal information or injustice meted out or violation of rights on account of the use of AI tools. The litigants and other victims would be left to fend for themselves.

The High Court stresses that judges would be subject to any civil or criminal liability that may arise under any applicable law, including the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, or the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, 2023. But when it comes to victims taking it up, they might have to deal with the shield provided to judges for their work on the judicial side under the Judges (Protection) Act, 1985.

The High Court was not oblivious of the problems. “At the same time, these technologies carry substantial risks — including hallucinations, bias, confidentiality breaches, and erosion of judicial independence — that must be managed with care and institutional discipline,” the policy document recorded.

For this, it advocated caution and proposed AI literacy to ensure confidentiality of case-related information, litigant data, and court records in conformity with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. But the fact that the need for such training was felt shows that the decision should have come in a phased manner starting with the use of AI on the administrative side.

Though the policy, on the one hand, bars use of AI for any form of decision-making, judicial reasoning, order drafting, judgment preparation, bail/sentencing considerations, or any substantive adjudicatory process, on the other, it permits use of such tools for formulation of “structural outline or framework for a judgment” and improvement of draft judgments for clarity.

The Supreme Court, however, has so far limited the use of AI tools for improving administrative efficiency. The AI and Machine Learning (ML) based tools are being deployed in case management. They are being used in transcribing of oral arguments in Constitution Bench matters.

The Supreme Court of India is also testing prototypes of AI and machine learning (ML) tools for curing defects, data, meta data extraction in collaboration with IIT, Madras. This AI and ML based tool will be integrated with the electronic filing module and the case management software, namely, Integrated Case Management & Information System(ICMIS).

The AI tools are being used in several High Courts for improving efficiency by automated filing, intelligent scheduling, enhancing the Case Information System and communicating with the litigants through chatbots. On the judicial side, the use of AI tools is limited to research work.