CA Sansaar
High Court flags AI-generated case law in GST order
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The Gujarat High Court has flagged what it called a “very worrying trend” of quasi-judicial authorities using Artificial Intelligence to generate legal citations that are either entirely non-existent or irrelevant to the cases before them.
The observations came during a hearing involving an order passed by the Additional Commissioner of Central GST and Central Excise. The bench said the order was flawed and deceptive.
The court was hearing a petition filed by M/s Marhabba Overseas Private Limited, through counsel Parth Bhatt, challenging the Commissioner’s order. It was pointed out that the Commissioner appeared to have relied on case laws and citations produced by AI without actually reading the underlying judgments. The cited precedents either did not exist or had no connection to the defence statements provided by the assessee.
The bench of Justice A S Supehia and Justice Pranav Trivedi said guidelines were needed for quasi-judicial authorities and noted in its interim order: “Some guidelines are required to be prescribed to the quasi-judicial authorities in referring to the judgements blindly generated through Artificial Intelligence, which are not in existence and even if they are in existence, they do not remotely apply to the issues raised by the assessee.”
On the Commissioner’s order itself, the bench noted: “The reasonings/findings recorded by the respondent-Commissioner, while dealing with the defence submissions, by placing reliance on the aforementioned judgement/citations, is flawed and deceptive. It appears that the Commissioner, without reading the actual judgements, has followed the AI generated citations and case law.”
The court said directions were called for “regulating/prescribing some parameters for quasi-judicial authorities while placing reliance on the judgements either of the High Courts or of the Supreme Court of India, while dealing with legal issues raised by an assessee.”
The matter has been posted for further hearing on March 12.
The observations came during a hearing involving an order passed by the Additional Commissioner of Central GST and Central Excise. The bench said the order was flawed and deceptive.
The court was hearing a petition filed by M/s Marhabba Overseas Private Limited, through counsel Parth Bhatt, challenging the Commissioner’s order. It was pointed out that the Commissioner appeared to have relied on case laws and citations produced by AI without actually reading the underlying judgments. The cited precedents either did not exist or had no connection to the defence statements provided by the assessee.
The bench of Justice A S Supehia and Justice Pranav Trivedi said guidelines were needed for quasi-judicial authorities and noted in its interim order: “Some guidelines are required to be prescribed to the quasi-judicial authorities in referring to the judgements blindly generated through Artificial Intelligence, which are not in existence and even if they are in existence, they do not remotely apply to the issues raised by the assessee.”
On the Commissioner’s order itself, the bench noted: “The reasonings/findings recorded by the respondent-Commissioner, while dealing with the defence submissions, by placing reliance on the aforementioned judgement/citations, is flawed and deceptive. It appears that the Commissioner, without reading the actual judgements, has followed the AI generated citations and case law.”
The court said directions were called for “regulating/prescribing some parameters for quasi-judicial authorities while placing reliance on the judgements either of the High Courts or of the Supreme Court of India, while dealing with legal issues raised by an assessee.”
The matter has been posted for further hearing on March 12.
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