Madras High Court to use AI to retrieve information from voluminous documents

Madras High Court to leverage AI for efficient document retrieval in a commercial dispute, enhancing legal research and organization.

The Madras High Court has decided to seek the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help it save time by retrieving relevant information from voluminous documents in a commercial dispute between Mumbai-based Gammon-OJSC Mosmetrostory JV – which had constructed some of the underground Metro stations in Chennai – and Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL).

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh has zeroed in on the algorithm Superlaw Courts, with the concurrence of the counsel representing both parties, after its working method was demonstrated in the court. The court was informed that the algorithm was designed to help legal professionals locate, organise, and understand information contained strictly within the documents placed before it for a particular matter.

The algorithm was intended to reduce the time and effort involved in manual searching and cross-referencing of voluminous documents. It was, however, not intended to replace legal reasoning, judicial determination, or a counsel’s professional judgement in a given matter. “Superlaw Courts operates under controls analogous to those expected in court proceedings,” the judge was told.

It was also brought to the notice of the judge that Superlaw Courts works exclusively on documents provided for the matter and that it does not consult external sources, general knowledge, or materials outside the record. If the record does not contain information in a traceable form, the system states that such information was not found in the documents provided, rather than generating an unsupported response.

“The system does not draw conclusions, assess credibility, interpret intent, or express legal views. It only presents what the documents state. Further, the outputs are based on identifiable portions of the record, allowing lawyers and the court to independently verify the context,” Justice Venkatesh said and recorded that the counsel, too, were satisfied with the working method of the algorithm.

He further took note that when documents get uploaded on Superlaw Courts, the system creates a dedicated digital workspace, comparable to a sealed record room in judicial chambers, and then the documents get processed to ensure they were workable. Scanned or image-based documents get converted into searchable text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) so they could be searched.