The Supreme Court of India’s Draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Courts, 2026 are an important and timely step towards building that governance framework. The Draft rightly places human primacy, transparency, accountability, data protection and judicial independence at its core.

The Cyril Shroff Centre for AI, Law and Regulation at Jindal 91视频 Law School (JGLS), 91视频 (JGU) has submitted its comments on the Draft Regulations, focusing on how the proposed framework can be strengthened in practice.

Our recommendations address six key areas: the legal basis of the framework, meaningful human oversight, judicial data governance, public transparency and accountability, protection of core safeguards, and the sequencing of implementation alongside India鈥檚 data protection framework.

The objective is not to slow the responsible adoption of AI in courts. It is to help ensure that innovation in the justice system develops on a framework that is constitutionally secure, operationally coherent, accountable and enforceable.

Read the carousel for our key recommendations.
Full submission available: [] ]]> /cscailr/centre-submits-comments-on-the-supreme-court-of-indias-draft-regulations-for-use-of-artificial-intelligence-in-courts-2026/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 06:12:22 +0000 /cscailr/?p=7879 The Centre has submitted its comments on the Supreme Court of India鈥檚 Draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026, an important initiative aimed at establishing a governance framework for the responsible use of artificial intelligence within the justice system. As AI technologies increasingly find application in judicial processes, the Draft Regulations represent a timely effort to ensure that innovation in the courts is guided by principles of human oversight, transparency, accountability, data protection, and judicial independence.

The Centre鈥檚 submission examines the proposed framework and offers recommendations on how it can be strengthened to ensure effective and responsible implementation. The comments focus on six key areas: the legal basis of the regulatory framework, meaningful human oversight over AI-assisted processes, judicial data governance, public transparency and accountability mechanisms, the protection of core procedural and constitutional safeguards, and the sequencing of implementation alongside India鈥檚 emerging data protection architecture. These recommendations seek to address both the opportunities and challenges associated with integrating AI technologies into the administration of justice.

The submission emphasises that the objective is not to impede the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence in courts, but to support the development of a governance framework that is constitutionally sound, operationally coherent, accountable, and enforceable. By engaging with these emerging regulatory questions, the Centre continues to contribute to national discussions on AI governance and the future of technology-enabled justice systems, while promoting the responsible and rights-respecting use of AI within judicial institutions.

The decision is significant for its treatment of AI training under Indian copyright law and its observations on jurisdiction in disputes involving AI systems. The Centre has actively engaged with these issues through its policy and scholarly work, including submissions on generative AI and copyright and academic commentary on the regulatory and legislative challenges posed by AI technologies. The development contributes to the ongoing debate on the intersection of artificial intelligence, copyright law, and regulatory policy in India.

Our submission welcomes the Government’s efforts to address emerging challenges posed by synthetic media, platform governance, and intermediary accountability. At the same time, we emphasise the importance of ensuringthat regulatory interventions remain constitutionally sound, proportionate, and aligned with established principles of administrative law.

Drawing on comparative approaches from the European Union, the United Kingdom, China, and the United States, the submission seeks to contribute constructively to the development of a regulatory framework that is constitutionally robust, technologically informed, and aligned with international best practices.

The Centre also underscored the importance of stronger coordination across the AI industry value chain, along with early engagement with non-EU regulators, including those in India, to minimise the risk of regulatory fragmentation across jurisdictions.
The engagement reflects the Centre’s active role in contributing to global regulatory discussions and its commitment to shaping coherent and effective approaches to AI governance.

The engagement reflects the Centre’s continued involvement in global policy discussions and its commitment to contributing to inclusive and forward-looking approaches to AI governance.

The Centre had also flagged concerns regarding overly strict labelling requirements. In the final rules passed by the Ministry, these concerns were addressed. The rules adopt a principles-based approach to labelling rather than prescriptive technical mandates. The Centre welcomes this step and continues to monitor the next critical development: MeitY’s position on whether generative AI service providers fall within the definition of ‘intermediaries’ under the Information Technology Act.

While acknowledging the Working Paper’s novel and well-intentioned approach, the Centre’s comments identified three principal concerns: first, that the proposed royalty collection and distribution mechanisms are impractical; second, that they are misaligned with the objective of balancing rightsholders’ interests with the need to ensure access to high-quality training data; and third, that they risk unintended negative consequences, including more rightsholders placing works behind paywalls and AI developers choosing to avoid Indian territory or Indian works. The Centre also noted that the Working Paper presumes infringement under existing law, a question that remains unsettled before Indian courts.

OVERVIEW OF THE BILL:
1. Centralised Governance by a singular authority The Bill proposes a novel solution to AI governance by proposing a single polycentric body comprising of members from academia, civil society and the government who may be experts in disciplines such as law, data science and human rights. This body, namely the Ethics Committee for Artificial Intelligence, shall be responsible for policy-guidance, regulatory actions and recommending penalties – including hefty monetary sanctions up to Rs. 5 crores and suspension or revocation of licences to deploy AI systems. Notably, the same body would be responsible for administrative oversight, policy direction and recommending penalties. Consequently, AI governance becomes highly centralised in the hands of a single organisation. Such a setup is directly in conflict with the governance architecture proposed by India AI Guidelines -which proposes a three-tier organisational structure that includes: 1. AI Governance Group – Serves as the apex body for enabling inter-ministerial coordination and administrative leadership at the highest level.

2. Technology & Policy Expert Committee – Advisory body consisting of academia, government as well as industry representatives to provide counsel and recommendations to the AI Governance Group. NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2025 13 3. AI Safety Institute – Responsible for building and adopting technical standards for safe and responsible use of AI. Arguably, the India AI Guidelines provided a more comprehensive approach towards AI governance – by separately catering to building of technical standards, ensuring multi sectoral collaboration and coordination at the apex level – as compared to the proposed Bill. Moreover, no guidance has been provided by the Bill regarding how penalties, if imposed, maybe further contested. This lack of clarity may disproportionately impact startups and MSME’s as against larger enterprises, given that compliance risk-management and related burdens can potentially increase. Additionally, there is also no expressed opportunity to be heard provided within the Bill, before the Ethics Committee proceeds to impose sanctions. 2.Special Provisions concerning surveillance The Bill provides for special provision through Clause 5 for certain use-cases of AI-enabled systems. It provides that surveillance shall be limited to lawful purposes and would be subject to approval of Ethics Committee for Artificial Intelligence (AI). Unfortunately, the Bill does not define the terms 鈥渟urveillance鈥� or what would 鈥渓awful purposes鈥� be construed as. Moreover, perhaps more critically, the Bill does not differentiate between surveillance functions performed by public bodies, such as Ministry of Home at the central level or Home Departments at the state-level, and private entities, such as banks, private lending institutions etc. Consequently, in the event of the Bill coming into force, key security agencies may have to apply for approvals to the Ethics Committee before deploying AI-enabled systems for purposes of internal security or defence purposes. Whether this has been intended deliberately or is an oversight remains unclear.

3. Regulation of AI systems involved in critical decision making Another provision in Clause 5 of the Bill deals with 鈥淎I systems involved in critical decision-making鈥�. Such AI systems, convening functions that include but are not limited to law enforcement, financial credit and employment, are subjected to [a]what the Bill calls 鈥渟tringent ethical reviews鈥� and [b] carry the obligation to not discriminate based on race, religion or gender. Unfortunately, the Bill does not provide any objective standard to classify AI systems involved in critical decision-making. Given the same, there remains uncertainty as to which AI systems would qualify for being regulated under this clause. Moreover, what standard/threshold of inquiry constitutes 鈥渟tringent鈥� ethical review has not been clarified by the Bill itself. The phrase by itself carries the tendency to not only create uncertainty but also a chilling effect on startups and bootstrapped enterprises hoping to leverage from AI-related developments. Crucially, since usage of AI-enabled systems in hiring – both with within the public as well as the private sector may be expected to increase, there may be associated compliance requirements that can arise if the Bill is passed by both the Houses of Parliament that not DECEMBER 2025 14 NEWSLETTER only involve compliance on behalf of HR departments of corporate entities using automated systems to scan profiles but also constitutional bodies such as Union as well as State Public Service Commissions and other government recruitment agencies; besides added compliance responsibility on agencies in the internal security establishment as well as financial institutions.

4.Obligations on Developers of AI models and systems The Bill provides a definition for developers and imposes specified obligations on them. The term 鈥渄eveloper鈥� has been defined to mean 鈥渁 person who design(s), develop(s), and implement(s) AI models and systems鈥� as under Clause 2(b) of the Bill. Further, the developer is subjected to three obligations under Clause 6: 1. Obligation to ensure transparency: This requires the developer to disclose 鈥渋ntended purpose鈥� and 鈥渓imitations鈥� of AI systems. 2. Obligation to prevent Algorithmic Bias: This obligation requires the developers carry regular audits to mitigate bias and ensure 鈥渄iversity and inclusivity鈥� in training datasets. The term algorithmic bias has been defined under the legislation to mean 鈥減resence of systematic errors in AI systems that result in unfair outcomes鈥�. 3. Obligation to maintain records for compliance with ethical standards. In terms of its applicability, the definition of developer is agnostic to the nature and scale of AI models and systems, thus treating teams working for multi-national organisations at the same pedestal as school or college-going students incubating a startup. A graded approach to risk management depending upon nature and scale of AI based innovations would have necessarily ensured that the governance framework meets requirements of proportionality without stifling innovation. Moreover, developers as per the Bill are defined as those who 鈥渄esign, develop and implement鈥� – such a framing is unfortunately misaligned with how AI-enabled tools are developed and deployed in the current eco-system. In practice, developing and deploying AI-enabled tools encompasses a wide range of entities including, though not always limited to, developers, vendors, entities that curate training datasets, cloud-service operators and end-users. Also, developers whose AI models are used for further building applications may not always have the requisite degree of control over their innovation; and risk attracting responsibility for consequences beyond their control. Moreover, there may be a need to distinguish between those engaged in developing foundational AI models and others who integrate these foundational models into sector-specific applications downstream. Unfortunately, the wide generalisations within the Bill fail to comprehensively account for such nuances. Additionally, the mandate for ensuring diversity and inclusion is imposed on 鈥淓very developer鈥� under Clause 6. However, not all AI systems may in practice require 鈥渄iversity and inclusivity鈥� in datasets. For instance, AI models built for particular use cases such as handling network traffic or AI models being used to detect genetic anomalies in vulnerable communities may require targeted datasets to train models for accuracy rather than NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2025 15 datasets with wide demographic diversity. Thus, adopting a blanket mandate for diversity and inclusion may not benefit all use-cases for AI-enabled systems.

CONCLUSION: A key feature of the Bill is its preference for broad definitions and general provisions, which if enforced would carry two essential imperatives. Firstly, they shall cast a wide regulatory dragnet on the AI innovation, which may be subjected to 鈥渟tringent鈥� ethical reviews as well as hefty penalties, for non-compliance. Secondly, the wide regulatory dragnet is accompanied by generic phraseology which may carry with it risks of overregulation as well as uncertainty within the AI ecosystem. While the proposed Bill pursues a laudable aim to lay down a comprehensive framework for ethical deployment of AI, its provisions often fall short of comprehensively dealing with issues that it, rightly, flags. The Bill, by hoping to be the anchoring legislation for AI governance in India, remains starkly in contrast with the regulatory direction which India-AI Guidelines and the RBI FREE-AI Framework has adopted in the past. Unlike the latter two, which pursue a sector-specific approach in dealing with AI-related developments, this proposed Bill aims to provide a comprehensive legislative approach to AI governance. While the jury is still out on which governance roadmap must India pursue, the Bill presents an opportunity to discuss future directions concerning AI governance – both within the legislative corri.