The Indian legal profession is facing an uncomfortable reality that it can no longer ignore. A large number of legal practitioners may not be qualified to do this. In the past few days, separate announcements by the Supreme Court and the Bar Council of India have exposed two distinct forms of inauthenticity in the legal profession: doubts about the qualifications of those who practice law, and doubts about the reliability of the artificial intelligence systems that are increasingly being used to assist them.
BCI’s recent verification revealed a flaw that should have been addressed decades ago. Admittedly, a staggering 35% to 40% of practitioners in court complexes across the country may be working with fraudulent law degrees. During the verification process, thousands failed to submit the required documents, confirming suspicions that many may have entered the profession through fabricated credentials.
Read also | A Real Test of AI Regulations: Reducing Waiting for Lawsuits
This scandal prompted the Chief Justice of India to make his famous statement about “cockroaches” and later clarify it. The CJI’s criticism was not directed at young lawyers in general, but at pseudo-practitioners who entered the bar through artificial means.
The importance of this crisis extends beyond professional misconduct. Accreditation is the basis of legal legitimacy. The justice system is based on the assumption that court personnel have undergone rigorous legal training and scrutiny. If this assumption begins to fail, then public confidence in the administration of justice fails with it. In light of this crisis, artificial intelligence has entered this profession.
The danger of artificial intelligence is no longer theoretical. Courts across India have expressed alarm over hallucinating AI inventing citations that appear entirely reliable. In Gummadi Usha Rani v. Shor Mallikarjuna Rao, a trial court in Andhra Pradesh inadvertently relied on four non-existent judgments – complete fabrications that struck at the heart of the judicial process. As courts, lawyers and law firms increasingly experiment with generative AI, the legal system now faces another form of inauthenticity. We have allowed human gatekeepers to become frauds, and now we risk allowing our legal reasoning to become artificial.
Read also | India’s AI strategy needs a classroom blueprint
These developments are often discussed as separate problems. But they are not. A profession that struggles to verify its human gatekeepers must now grapple with technologies capable of falsifying expertise itself. As unvetted algorithms entered the legal system, we couldn’t even determine whether the men and women in black coats were real or fraudulent. The challenge posed by AI is therefore inseparable from the erosion of professional authenticity – the first relates to fabricated credentials; The other relates to fabricated reasoning. Both threaten public trust, on which the justice system ultimately depends.
The necessity of a “human in the loop” is now a matter of institutional survival. To stem this tide, the Supreme Court’s Draft Artificial Intelligence Regulations (2026) imposed absolute bans on protecting the judiciary: no algorithmic decision-making, no black box systems, and mandatory disclosure without monitoring or labeling of judges, lawyers or litigants. The regulations recognize a basic principle: technology may assist in making legal decisions, but it cannot replace human judgment.
But artificial intelligence did not create this crisis; He simply arrived in the middle of it. The response must therefore be broader than regulating AI alone. It requires rigorous verification of lawyers’ credentials, real reform of legal education, stronger professional oversight, and clear governance of the AI-generated material that enters and leaves courtrooms. The lawyer of the future must possess verified expertise that is enhanced—not replaced—by technology.
Read also | What do the Supreme Court’s proposed regulations mean for the use of artificial intelligence in courts?
The draft AI regulations represent a progressive milestone toward transparency, yet their effectiveness hinges on a crucial legal distinction. By classifying these mandates as regulations rather than rules under Section 145, the Supreme Court risks creating a framework that lacks the necessary constitutional powers for implementation.
For a mandatory disclosure requirement to be more than just a statement of intent, it must be supported by enforceable oversight that prevents artificial logic from exploiting the current crisis of professional lying. The BCI, the judiciary and academia must now cooperate. If we allow the human element to be erased by false degrees and uncritical reliance on algorithms, we will be left with a legal system that may be efficient and automated but completely divorced from the human judgment on which justice depends.
Ashish Bharadwaj is the next Pro-Vice Chancellor of WPU Goa. Ensia Vahanvati is a social and political commentator and author of The Brave Judge. The opinions expressed are personal
