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AI in the Courtroom · Judges, courts and AI

Vijay Ghanshyam Gadiya v. Union of India

A customs adjudicating officer imposed a penalty in an order that relied on judgments and articles the appellant said were AI-generated. The Supreme Court of India checked the authorities itself, found some nonexistent and others misapplied, and set aside the order and the High Court judgment upholding it.

Primary document readPenalty order and High Court judgment set aside; remanded to a different officer September 2, 2026

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What happened

On October 8, 2025, the Additional Commissioner of Customs at Surat issued an Order-in-Original imposing a penalty of Rs. 425,27,99,100 on Vijay Ghanshyam Gadiya under section 114 of the Customs Act, 1962. The order found that a consignment of natural diamonds had been declared as lab-grown diamonds to pay a lower tariff. The High Court of Gujarat dismissed Gadiya's appeal on January 20, 2026, and he took the matter to the Supreme Court.

Before the Supreme Court, Gadiya's side did not argue the merits. It contended that several judgments and articles cited in the Order-in-Original had been generated using artificial intelligence. The order under challenge was not a court judgment. It was issued by a quasi-judicial officer of the customs department, which is the kind of decision-maker that appears in this record less often than judges and lawyers but decides a large share of disputes.

What the court did

The Court did not take the contention on faith. Its order records: "We have made the effort to individually verify whether such contention of the appellant is true. Upon verifying such judgments and articles, it does appear that the second respondent has relied upon case laws that are either non-existent or have fake citations." It added that some of the authorities that do exist "do not lay down the ratio deduced therefrom and it appears to be a hallucination of AI."

The Court then quoted paragraph 7 of its own earlier decision in Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd., including the passage stating that a decision resting on fake or hallucinated material "is no decision in the eyes of the law." It also referred to the draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026, which it had released for comment, and observed: "assistance can never be substituted for adjudication. AI may well serve as training wheels but entrusting it with the pilot's seat would be both imprudent and dangerous."

The Additional Solicitor General did not contest the point. The Court allowed the appeal, set aside both the High Court's order and the Order-in-Original, and directed that the proceedings be decided afresh "by an officer of the same rank other than the one who passed the order." Finally, it left it "to the wisdom of the appointing authority to initiate such action against the author of the order" as may be warranted.

Where it stands

The penalty proceedings are revived before a different officer. The merits of the misdeclaration allegation were not decided by the Supreme Court and remain open. No disciplinary step against the officer who wrote the original order was located as of October 8, 2026. The order is marked reportable and carries the neutral citation 2026 INSC 947.

Gadiya is the second Supreme Court of India order in this record to set aside a decision for relying on fabricated authority, after Pooja Ramesh Singh, and it was followed in time by the Gujarat High Court's ruling in Faiz Enterprise v. State Tax Officer, where a state tax officer's order met the same fate. The two matters concern different departments and different courts. What they share is a reviewing court that verified the cited authorities itself.

The obligation it engaged

The conduct engages Clause 3 of the Standard, independent authority. Nothing should enter a decision or a report on the authority of a system; each citation and each characterization of a case has to be confirmed against the source. The Court's own verification exercise is the check that the order's author did not perform.

Clause 2, non-delegation, is engaged by the Court's warning that assistance cannot substitute for adjudication. An expert's opinion stands in the same position as an adjudicator's finding: a system can help locate material, but the reasoning that connects the material to the conclusion has to belong to the person who signs.

Sources

What could not be confirmed

The order does not identify which AI system was used or how the officer used it; the AI attribution is the appellant's contention, which the Court found borne out by its own check. No press coverage, disciplinary action or remand outcome was located as of 2026-10-08.

About this entry

This entry was checked against the primary document listed in the sources. The entry for Vijay Ghanshyam Gadiya v. Union of India records conduct and what the tribunal did. It does not characterize a holding and it is not legal advice. Last checked October 8, 2026. More matters like this one are collected under judges, courts and AI. If something here is out of date, write to [email protected].

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