Chandigarh, April 7
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday directed judicial officers not to use artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot for writing judgments or carrying out legal research, underlining that any breach of the order will be treated seriously. In a letter issued yesterday, the high court’s registrar-general informed all district and sessions judges in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh that the Chief Justice had instructed them to ensure judicial officers under their supervision do not rely on AI platforms in court work.
The communication specifically said judicial officers must not use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools — “including but not limited to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Meta, et cetera” — for the writing of judgments and legal research. It added that any violation of the directions would be “viewed seriously”.
The development follows a similar step by the Gujarat High Court, which has already barred the use of AI in any substantive adjudicatory role. Under its recently announced AI policy, the Gujarat High Court prohibited the use of artificial intelligence for decision-making, judicial reasoning, order drafting, judgment preparation, bail sentencing considerations, or any substantive adjudicatory process.
