Justice depends on human wisdom, not AI

THe native american effectual professing is veneer an uncomfortable realness it can no longer ignore. A significant number of those practising law may not be qualified to do so. In the last few days, separate announcements by the Supreme Court and the Bar Council of India (BCI) have exposed two distinct forms of inauthenticity in the legal profession: Doubts about the credentials of those practising law, and doubts about the reliability of the Artificial intelligence (AI) systems increasingly being used to assist them.The BCI’s recent verification exercise has exposed a rot that should have been addressed decades ago. By its own admission, a staggering 35-40% of practitioners in court complexes across the country may be operating with fake law degrees. During the verification process, thousands failed to submit the required documentation, confirming suspicions that many may have entered the profession through fabricated credentials.ALSO READ | Real test of AI regulations: Reducing pendency of court casesThe scandal prompted the Chief Justice of India to make — and later clarify — his now-infamous “cockroaches” remark. The CJI’s critique was not directed at young lawyers generally but at bogus practitioners who had entered the Bar through manufactured means.The significance of this crisis extends far beyond professional misconduct. Accreditation is the foundation of legal legitimacy. The justice system depends upon the assumption that officers of the court have undergone rigorous legal training and scrutiny. If that assumption begins to fail, public trust in the administration of justice fails with it. It is in the eye of this crisis that AI has entered the profession.The danger of AI is no longer theoretical. Courts across India have expressed alarm over AI hallucinations that invent citations that appear entirely authoritative. In Gummadi Usha Rani v. Sure Mallikarjuna Rao, an Andhra Pradesh trial court unknowingly relied on four non-existent judgments — complete fabrications that struck at the heart of the adjudicatory process. As courts, lawyers, and law firms increasingly experiment with generative AI, the legal system now confronts a second form of inauthenticity. We have allowed the human gatekeepers to become fraudulent, and now we risk allowing our legal reasoning to become synthetic.ALSO READ | India’s AI strategy needs a classroom blueprintThese developments are often discussed as separate problems. But they are not. A profession that struggles to verify its human gatekeepers must now grapple with technologies capable of counterfeiting expertise itself. As unvetted algorithms enter the legal system, we have not even established whether the men and women in black coats are genuine or fraudulent. The challenge posed by AI is, therefore, inseparable from the erosion of professional authenticity — one concerns fabricated credentials; the other concerns fabricated reasoning. Both threaten public trust, upon which the justice system ultimately depends.The necessity of a “human in the loop” is now a matter of institutional survival. To stem this tide, the Supreme Court’s Draft AI Regulations (2026) have established absolute prohibitions to protect the bench: no algorithmic decision-making, no black-box systems, and mandatory disclosure with no surveillance or profiling of judges, lawyers, or litigants. The regulations recognise an essential principle: Technology may assist legal decision-making, but it cannot replace human judgment.But AI did not create this crisis; it simply arrived in the middle of it. The response must therefore be broader than AI regulation alone. It requires rigorous verification of advocates’ credentials, meaningful reform of legal education, stronger professional oversight, and clear governance of AI-generated material entering and leaving courtrooms. The lawyer of the future must possess verified expertise that is enhanced — not replaced — by technology.ALSO READ | What Supreme Court’s proposed regulations for AI use in courts meanThe draft AI regulations represent a progressive milestone toward transparency, yet their efficacy hinges on a critical legal distinction. By categorising these mandates as regulations rather than rules under Article 145, the Supreme Court risks creating a framework without the constitutional teeth required for enforcement.For the mandatory disclosure requirement to be more than a statement of intent, it must be backed by enforceable oversight that prevents synthetic reasoning from exploiting the current crisis of professional inauthenticity. The BCI, the judiciary, and academia must align now. If we allow the human element to be erased by bogus degrees and uncritical reliance on algorithms, we will be left with a legal system that may be efficient and automated but utterly detached from the human judgment upon which justice depends.Ashish Bharadwaj is the pro vice-chancellor of the upcoming WPU Goa. Insiyah Vahanvaty is a socio-political commentator and author of ‘The Fearless Judge’. The views expressed are personal