Supreme Court rebukes lawyer who blamed client for AI-generated fake judgments

The Supreme Court has criticised a lawyer who, when caught filing a compilation that allegedly contained AI-generated judgments, tried to pin the blame on his own clients.

The episode is recorded at the end of Thursday’s judgment in Deepak Raheja v. Omkara, delivered by a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih. “Before parting, we wish to advert to an undesirable incident that transpired in course of hearing,” the judgment says.

During the hearing, the appellants placed a compilation of judgments on record. The respondents objected at once, saying it contained AI-generated judgments that do not exist. When the bench asked about it, the advocate-on-record sought to put the entire responsibility on the appellants and feigned ignorance of what the compilation contained, which the court disapproved of. Senior counsel for the appellants then accepted responsibility and sought forgiveness on their behalf.

The respondents argued that the appellants should not be heard at all. The bench heard the appeals on merits while keeping that objection open. It had first proposed exemplary costs, but dropped them after being told that the first appellant, Deepak Raheja, had died. “It is for such reason that the order requiring payment of costs has been deleted by ‘no order as to costs’,” the judgment says. The court did not identify the disputed judgments or make its own finding that they were AI-generated.

On the merits, the bench dismissed both appeals and upheld insolvency proceedings brought by Omkara Assets Reconstruction against GSTAAD Hotels, which runs the JW Marriott in Bengaluru, and Neo Capricorn Plaza, which runs the Crowne Plaza in Pune, over defaults on loans first given by Piramal Finance. It held that the National Company Law Tribunal does not have to work out the exact amount owed before admitting an insolvency application.