Artificial Intelligence in the Indian Judiciary: Balancing Efficiency with Ethical Guardrails
UPSC Relevance
Prelims: Science and Technology (Artificial Intelligence, LLMs); Indian Polity and Governance (Judiciary, e-Courts Project); Current events of national and international importance.
Mains:
General Studies Paper 2: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; Structure, organization and functioning of the Judiciary.
General Studies Paper 3: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life; Awareness in the fields of IT, Computers.
Essay: Topics related to the impact of technology on governance and society.
Key Highlights from the News
Kerala High Court became the first High Court in India to issue guidelines (policy/guidelines) for the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the district judiciary.
Although AI can help reduce the backlog of nearly five crore cases in courts, it also poses several risks and challenges.
Errors in translation and transcription, bias in legal research, and hallucinations (citing non-existent cases) are major challenges.
Overuse of AI could reduce judicial decisions to mere legal conclusions, potentially ignoring the specific circumstances of a case and human judgment.
The article argues that effective guardrails are necessary to address these challenges.
Providing AI literacy to judges and lawyers, establishing transparent procurement guidelines, and setting up technical offices in courts (as proposed in eCourts Project Phase III) are key solutions.
The article suggests that if AI is used in a case, parties should have the right to be informed and be given the opportunity to opt-out if necessary.
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