Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Saturday credited young lawyers, judicial officers and legal professionals for driving the judiciary’s technological transformation and rapid adoption of digital tools.
Speaking at the Oxford Union on the theme “Constitutional Promise to Digital Reality: Safeguarding Justice in the Age of AI and Technological Advancement”, the Chief Justice said the judiciary’s efforts to modernise court processes had succeeded because of the adaptability of young legal professionals.
“The youth in law, I am using the word, is so adaptive in India, whether the district court judicial officer, whether the government lawyer, and even those who are assisting the corporate entities as legal advisors. All these young brains are so adaptive, so quick in adopting it, that they have been a really encouraging source for the Indian judiciary to bring all these reformative changes,” said the CJI.
Referring to ongoing efforts to build an indigenous artificial intelligence ecosystem for the judiciary, he said the objective was to develop solutions tailored to India’s constitutional and institutional realities.
The proposed systems, he said, could strengthen existing digital initiatives by streamlining administrative functions such as filing, listing and case allocation, while also improving the analysis of pendency-related data and assisting judicial decision-making.
He however, emphasised that technology could never replace human judgment.
“An artificial intelligence system can no doubt process immense volumes of legal text with astonishing speed. It can map procedural trends and eliminate administrative checkpoints with clinical precision, yet it remains entirely blind to the qualities that animate the soul of the law - empathy, ethical discernment and deep contextual understanding,” the CJI said.
He added that the Supreme Court was presently developing a regulatory framework for the use of artificial intelligence in the judicial system and had recently uploaded draft AI regulations for public consultation.
According to him, the proposed framework is built around principles including human oversight, fairness, transparency, accountability, periodic audits and protection of personal data.
The Chief Justice also highlighted several technology initiatives undertaken by the judiciary, including the e-Courts project, the National Judicial Data Grid, virtual hearings and live-streaming of court proceedings.
He said these reforms had helped democratise access to justice by reducing the barriers created by distance and geography.
He added that technology must remain a tool in service of constitutional values and should never become a substitute for human-centred justice.
The event was hosted by the Oxford Law Society and Oxford Union. The welcome address was delivered by Advocate-on-Record Tanvi Dubey.