Supreme Court of India's AI Initiatives: SUPACE, SUVAS, AI Translation and Transcription, and the AI Committee

The Supreme Court's use of technology predates generative AI. The e-Committee of the Supreme Court has overseen the eCourts Mission Mode Project since 2004, and the AI-specific push began in 2019 and 2021. SPMRF, a think-tank, reports that SUVAS was launched on Constitution Day, 26 November 2019, and SUPACE on 6 April 2021.¹ Bar & Bench reported that SUPACE, the Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Courts Efficiency, was launched on 6 April 2021 by the Court's Artificial Intelligence Committee at a video-conference event, and that Justice N.V. Ramana called the occasion a "feather in the cap of CJI Bobde".²

From the first the Court set a limit. Ten days later Chief Justice S.A. Bobde was reported as saying that a justice system cannot accept a machine, however intelligent, as a replacement for human decisions, because "there is a lot of emotional basis to a (judicial) decision, which AI cannot reach".³ That line, assistance without substitution, has been the constant across five years of statements.

The tools the Court uses or has announced are summarised below. Official descriptions were not available for this entry, so the table relies on court orders, parliamentary replies as reported, and independent commentary.

SUVAS translations are expressly informational. A December 2025 Delhi High Court order in a criminal contempt matter states that its Hindi version was produced with the AI tool SUVAS and carries a disclaimer that the translation is for the litigant's understanding while the English text is authentic for official and enforcement purposes, consistent with Article 348(1)(a) of the Constitution.⁴¹

AI spending sits within eCourts Phase III. SPMRF reports an allocation of about Rs 53.57 crore for the AI-related work under that phase.¹

Two Supreme Court bodies matter. The e-Committee oversees the eCourts project. The AI Committee launched SUPACE in 2021, and Bar & Bench reported on 11 December 2025 that Chief Justice Surya Kant had reconstituted it, with Justice P.S. Narasimha as chair, to guide the adoption of AI in courts for efficiency, transparency and accessibility.²⁸ It is this Committee that issued the draft Regulations in June 2026 through its Member Secretary.⁹

Parliament. On 21 March 2025 the Law Minister told Parliament that the Supreme Court was integrating AI and machine-learning tools into case management and was not using them for judgments or orders.⁵

The December 2025 plea. On 5 December 2025 a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard Kartikeya Rawal v. Union of India, a plea to curb unregulated AI in the judicial system that pointed to lower-court orders citing non-existent Supreme Court precedents. The bench said judges used AI cautiously, that they should cross-check citations, and that the Court would not issue directions on the judicial side while inviting inputs on the administrative side, and it allowed the plea to be withdrawn.⁷

Case law. From February 2026 the Court developed a jurisprudence on AI hallucination. In Gummadi Usha Rani v. Sure Mallikarjuna Rao it declared a trial court's reliance on AI-generated non-existent judgments to be misconduct and began an inquiry that involves the Bar Council of India and the IT and Law ministries. In Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank (2 July 2026) it set aside NCLT and NCLAT rulings, declared zero tolerance for unverified AI citations and spoke of adopting AI with "a human in the loop at every stage".¹⁰ In Vijay Ghanshyam Gadiya v. Union of India (2 September 2026) it set aside a customs penalty on the same ground. Each is covered in a separate entry.

Draft regulations. The draft of 3 June 2026 would apply to all courts. It would require AI systems already in use to be reviewed for compliance within a year of commencement (Regulation 41), forbid risk scoring and outcome-determining AI, and make audits in-house. SCAORA has asked for audits of SUPACE, SUVAS, SuSahayak, AI-assisted transcription, e-SCR and AI-enabled e-filing before the framework takes effect.⁹⁶

The sources reviewed contain more commentary on the limits of the tools than on their results. SPMRF identifies SUPACE's hardware needs (high-grade GPUs and TPUs) and its pilot status as the main obstacles to wider use, and notes that SUVAS translations are non-authoritative because English governs under Article 348(1)(a).¹ The same article presents human review as a deliberate design choice, with trained experts, including retired judges and senior law clerks, correcting machine drafts.¹

Transparency is a second concern. The Bar's July 2026 submission on the draft regulations asked for technical, legal, ethical and cybersecurity audits of existing tools, clearer definitions of terms such as "Court Data" and "High-Risk AI Tools", and a less bureaucratic governance structure.⁶ The draft itself would require audits to be conducted in-house, with no source code, algorithms or datasets shared with outside auditors, which may limit independent scrutiny.⁹ The Court has not published, in the sources reviewed, usage figures for SUPACE or an evaluation of any tool.

As of 15 October 2026 the Supreme Court continues to use and pilot the tools above while its AI Committee's draft regulations remain unfinalised. The Court itself noted on 2 September 2026 that the regulations were yet to be finalised. The sources reviewed did not show official usage figures for SUPACE, a published list of AI tools approved for use in the Court, or the date on which AI-based listing and pendency-tracking tools went live. Readers should treat the announcements of January and March 2026 as stated plans rather than confirmed deployments.