The Karnataka high court has directed action against a city civil court judge for citing non-existent Supreme Court rulings while deciding an application under the Code of Civil Procedure.
In an order issued on March 24, Justice R Devdas of the high court expressed concern over the judge's conduct, stating that the matter warranted further investigation.
"What is more disturbing is that the learned judge of the city civil court has cited two decisions that were never delivered by the apex Court or any other court," it observed.
"The learned senior counsel appearing for the plaintiffs has clearly stated that such decisions were not cited by the plaintiffs' counsel. This act on the part of the learned judge requires further probe and appropriate action in accordance with the law."
The case arose from a revision petition challenging the civil court's jurisdiction in a commercial dispute.
Senior counsel Prabhuling Navadgi, representing the petitioners, argued that the lower court had rejected their application solely based on citations of judgments that did not exist.
Navadgi informed the high court in January that the cited judgments appeared to have been fraudulently manufactured, as no official records of them could be found on the Supreme Court's website or any other legal database.
He further noted that artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT sometimes generate "fictitious case laws" and suggested that this could be a possibility in the present case.
Taking serious note of these allegations, the high court ordered, "A copy of this order shall be placed before the hon'ble chief justice for further action against the learned judge."
Additionally, the high court allowed the revision petition, noting that the plaintiffs had previously filed a commercial suit, withdrawn it without liberty, and subsequently filed a fresh suit before a civil court that lacked jurisdiction.
"This is an ingenious method adopted by the plaintiffs to maintain a suit before a court that had no jurisdiction," the court remarked.
The respondents were represented by senior counsel Shyam Sunder and advocate B K S Sanjay.
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