The Supreme Court of India is letting Artificial Intelligence lend a hand—but only to carry files, not to bang the gavel.
In a recent update from the Union Law Ministry, it was clarified that AI and Machine Learning are being used strictly to manage the back-end bustle of the judiciary, not to influence decisions or hand down judgments. The assurance came straight from Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal in a Parliamentary response, cutting through the buzz around AI’s growing footprint in legal systems.
At present, AI is being used for transcribing oral arguments, especially during Constitution Bench hearings. These real-time transcripts are already live on the Supreme Court’s website, giving the public a word-for-word window into courtroom debates. And starting soon, Thursdays—reserved for regular hearings—will also get the AI-transcription treatment.
But that’s just one part of the digital facelift. The Supreme Court has also started translating judgments from English into 18 Indian languages using AI, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Urdu. It’s part of a push to democratize access to justice, with translations available via the eSCR portal.
Another project in the pipeline is SUPACE—an AI tool meant to help analyze facts and flag relevant legal precedents. Though promising, it’s still in the testing phase, waiting on more powerful hardware to fully roll out.
Meanwhile, the Registry is teaming up with IIT Madras to develop an AI tool that flags defects in legal filings. A prototype has already been sent to 200 Advocates-on-Record to gather feedback on how it holds up in the real world.
What the court isn’t doing? Letting AI suggest legal outcomes, conduct legal research, or make any kind of decision that could alter the course of a case. In other words, the bots can help stack the papers—but they’re not sitting on the bench.