A public register

AI-invented citations in Indian courts: the register

By Abhijeet, founder, Pundora · Published 3 October 2026

On 2 July 2026 the Supreme Court held that citing a judgment without verifying it is misconduct on the part of an advocate. This is a plain record of every Indian order on the subject that could be traced: 21 entries, 14 of them read in the order itself, newest first.

The ruling that changed the question

"It is a misconduct on the part of an advocate to cite such judgments without verification."Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd, 2026 INSC 668, Supreme Court of India, 2 July 2026 (Supreme Court Observer's law report; source below).

The Court set aside orders that rested on judgments which did not exist, spoke of zero tolerance for the production, citation or reliance upon AI-generated precedents without independent verification, and directed the Bar Council of India to frame guiding principles and the disciplinary consequences. The entries below are the orders before and after it.

How to read this register

• One entry per order or judgment, newest first. Each links to the document where one could be found, and to a report of it.
• The wording is neutral. Advocates and parties are not named here unless the court's own title names them; the point is what courts have done, not who erred.
• An entry marked as not verified could not be traced to the court's document or a full report when this was compiled; it is listed so that it can be found, and it says so.
• A missing order is a gap, not a claim that none exists. Write to contact@pundora.in with the order and it will be added, dated and credited to the document.

What the record shows

• 16 orders and hearings between 30 December 2024 and 2 September 2026 that dealt with citations or passages which do not exist (two of them, in the Andhra Pradesh High Court and the Supreme Court, arise from one trial-court order).
• In 13 of them the invented material was in an order of a court, a tribunal or a tax authority itself, not in an advocate's filing. The problem is not only at the Bar.
• Costs were imposed once in this record (Rs 50,000, Bombay High Court, January 2026, on a party appearing in person). Far more often the order was set aside or recalled, or the matter sent back.
• 14 of the 21 entries were read in the order or judgment itself; the rest are marked.

The incidents, newest first

Context: orders and hearings about AI where no invented citation was before the court

What verification means in practice

Find the judgment under the citation in a source that holds its text; read the passage relied on in that text; confirm the court, the parties and the date. A tool can do the first two and show the passage; it cannot do the reading. What Pundora's own check does, the words it uses, and what it does not catch are set out on how Pundora checks a citation.

Since the ruling

As of 3 October 2026 no guideline issued by the Bar Council of India under the Supreme Court's direction of 2 July 2026 was found on the pages that could be read. The Council's own website could not be read that day, so this is a statement that none was found, not that none exists. The Supreme Court's own matter arising from the Andhra Pradesh trial-court order (the special leave petition in Gummadi Usha Rani) was last traced to a hearing on 5 May 2026.

A public record kept by Pundora. Every entry links to its source; a correction or a missing order sent to contact@pundora.in is added and dated.