CHENNAI: In a first of its kind, the Madras High Court is set to use an artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted system – ‘Superlaw Courts’ – for filtering the required information from the case documents aimed at expeditious hearing, speedy disposal of cases and saving time and energy in justice delivery system.
With the concurrence of the parties to the arbitration case – Gammon-OJSC Mosmetrostroy JV Vs Chennai Metro Rail Limited – Justice N Anand Venkatesh has decided to use the algorithm Superlaw Courts which helps legal professionals locate, organise and understand information contained strictly within the documents placed before it for a particular matter.
“The system is intended to reduce the time and effort involved in manual searching and cross-referencing voluminous documents,” the judge said in a note circulated to the counsel and parties of the case.
“It is not intended to replace legal reasoning, judicial determination of counsel’s professional judgement,” the note said.
The algorithm was demonstrated in the open court on January 28 in the presence of the counsel.
Superlaw Courts works exclusively on the documents provided for the matter and it does not consult external sources, general knowledge or materials outside the records and will not draw conclusions, assess credibility, interpret intent, or express legal views but only present what the documents state.
Using an optical character recognition tool, scanned or image-based documents are converted into searchable text and the AI partner’s role is limited to re-expressing or summarising the retrieved excerpts in clear language.
The court and the counsel expressed satisfaction over the AI-assisted algorithm and in order to respond more effectively, it was suggested that the counsel will be provided a link through which they can work with the algorithm to identify specific issues.
The judge and the counsel agreed to prepare a draft order containing the facts of the case and the arguments covering the pleadings, evidence and findings of the arbitral tribunal. Once the draft order is circulated, both sides can verify the contents and accuracy of facts.