The Supreme Court of India has confirmed that AI is being used in various tasks including translation of judicial documents, enhancing legal research and automating multiple processes. Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Arjun Ram Meghwal has informed the same in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on August 9. 

The technology had already been adopted for transcribing oral arguments into regional languages in Constitution Bench matters. The minister also added that a Committee had been formed by the Supreme Court Judge to oversee translation of important Supreme Court and High Court judgments.

The Committee conducts regular meetings to determine ways to speed up the translation process. These Committees have also asked the High Courts to request their respective state governments to translate all Central and State legislation, rules and regulations into regional languages for state websites. 

Until August 5, the Supreme Court has translated 36, 271 judgments into Hindi and 17,142 translations into 16 other regional languages, using AI, the minister shared. These are all available on the e-SCR portals now. Just eight High Courts have launched their e-HCR portals yet while others are still in the process of doing so.

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Earlier in April this year, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said that the adoption of AI in the judicial system was inevitable despite the challenges that came with it. He went on to underline AI-powered transcription as an example of a task that could be successfully delegated to be done by AI. 

The CJI also announced a second hackathon by the Supreme Court on August 9 to help streamline the Registry and help them deal with formatting and sorting judicial records as well as remove defects in petitions using AI.