A Rouse Avenue Court fined a complainant Rs 20,000 for filing a poorly drafted plea, citing excessive AI reliance. Magistrate Neha Mittal dismissed the FIR request under BNSS, noting lack of meaningful human drafting oversight.
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has fined a complainant Rs 20,000 after finding her petition seeking registration of an FIR was full of grammatical mistakes, disjointed sentences and “meaningless words,” indicating excessive reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) tools without adequate human oversight.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Neha Mittal of the Rouse Avenue Court issued the order on March 30 while dismissing an application under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (now under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita), which allows a magistrate to direct police to register an FIR.
The complainant, Punam Pandey, sought action against Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, alleging he had threatened her and her family with death. She said that despite approaching the police in 2018 and contacting emergency services, no effective steps were taken. The petition also accused police officers of accepting a Rs 50 lakh bribe from the accused and failing to properly investigate.
The court, however, found the application defective both in substance and form. In a strong order, the magistrate stated the petition appeared to be an instance of “technical intervention” with little human thought.
To illustrate the poor drafting, the court reproduced parts of the complaint to highlight its incoherence:
“that is why the me could not take legal action against the OCT accused because the me is Lady… The mean Lebaut was in depression… The complaint EO SHO PS Mehrauli… BHE BE Action was taken till me.”
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The court observed,
“These lines certainly do not make any sense and fail to convey anything else except the fact that drafting might have been done with more technical intervention and less of human mind contribution,”
The judge noted the application contained numerous grammatical errors and random, meaningless insertions, which wasted court time as the bench tried, unsuccessfully, to interpret the document.
The order said,
“This court deems it appropriate to highlight the quality of the drafting that has been dumped before it,”
Substantively, the court also found the complaint legally unsustainable. It observed that the complainant had sent the grievance to both the Station House Officer (SHO) and the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) on the same day, without allowing a reasonable interval for action, thereby failing to follow procedural requirements under Section 173(4) of the BNSS.
The bench further held the allegations did not disclose a cognizable offence, noting that a mere claim of threats did not, by itself, attract provisions such as Section 308 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The application was therefore dismissed as “non-maintainable,” lacking jurisdiction and failing to satisfy legal standards.
The magistrate also warned about the growing misuse of AI in legal drafting, echoing concerns voiced by higher courts. The order pointed out that despite repeated judicial cautions, litigants continue to file frivolous and poorly drafted petitions, causing unnecessary delays and burdening the justice system.
The court remarked,
“Such practices have recently been deprecated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and various High Courts. Despite nipping such complaints in the bud, litigants… are definitely successful in wasting judicial time,”
To “meet the ends of justice” and to deter similar conduct, the court ordered Pandey to pay Rs 20,000 to the Delhi Legal Services Authority.
Separately, the Supreme Court has also expressed alarm over growing AI use in petition drafting. A bench led by CJI Surya Kant noted instances where lawyers cited judgments or quotations that did not exist. “We have been alarmingly told that some lawyers have started using AI for drafting,” CJI Kant said during a hearing. Justice Nagarathna recalled a matter in which a fictitious case was cited, stating, “There was a case of Mercy vs Mankind which does not exist”.
She added that genuine Supreme Court judgments had been cited but the quoted passages were absent from the actual rulings.
Case Title: Punam Pandey v. Former SHO, PS: Mehrauli & Ors