Shocked by a non-existent judgment ‘Mercy versus Mankind’ cited in a petition, the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed serious concern over the growing trend of some lawyers filing petitions drafted with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.“We are alarmed to reflect that some lawyers have started using AI to draft petitions. It is absolutely uncalled for,” a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said while hearing a PIL filed by academician Roop Rekha Verma seeking guidelines on political speeches.As Justice Nagarathna said she recently came across a non-existent citation, ‘Mercy vs Mankind’, CJI Kant said that in Justice Dipankar Datta’s court, “not one but a series of such judgments were cited”. The case law relied upon was found to be fabricated, the CJI added.Noting that at times, the judgments referred to were correct, but fake quotes were attributed to those verdicts, making it very difficult to verify the contents, Justice Nagarathna said, “It creates an additional burden on judges.”Lamenting the decline in the art of legal drafting, Justice Bagchi said many special leave petitions (SLPs) comprised lengthy quotations from prior judgments, with little original articulation of legal grounds.As part of its efforts to speed up the justice delivery process, the Supreme Court has been using AI, particularly for translating its judgments and orders from English into Indian languages. It’s also making an integrated use of AI and Machine Learning tools for case management.However, in recent years, courts have come across pleadings and orders that referred to case laws not found in official records and have emphasised the need for accuracy and proper verification.Maintaining technology can be helpful for research and management of cases, judges have repeatedly said the final responsibility lay with lawyers and judges and that every citation and legal reference must be checked against authorised sources before placing it on record.