Stating that there is a need to prescribe “parameters” for quasi-judicial authorities about relying on high court or Supreme Court judgments, the Gujarat High Court issued notices to the central GST and excise department to explain submissions that “appeared” to be made by the department by following “AI-generated citations and case laws”.
A bench of Justice A S Supehia and Justice Pranav Trivedi issued notices to the respondents, the additional commissioner of the Central GST and central excise department and the joint commissioner (anti-evasion), CGST and Central Excise, while hearing a matter concerning a notice issued by the CGST to M/s Marhabba Overseas Private Limited.
The oral order of the court, dated February 20 (made available on Monday), noted that after senior advocate S N Soprkar, who appeared for the petitioner firm, “pointed out a very worrying trend” that the additional commissioner of CGST had, while passing an order on September 26, 2025 against the petitioners, relied on “non-existing judgments” or those that “though in existence… (were) not even remotely connected to the issues” raised by the firm in a reply it had earlier submitted to the department’s show cause notice.
The petitioner’s advocates drew the court’s attention to at least three rulings relied on by the CGST department that, as per their research, either did not exist or were incorrectly cited and attributed to other courts. The submissions also drew attention to the fact that some judgments, though cited correctly, pertained to matters completely different from the issue raised by the petitioner.
Stating that the submissions and the concern expressed by the senior advocate “merits acceptance”, the court order noted, “It is urged by the learned Senior Advocate that some guidelines are required to be prescribed to the quasi-judicial authorities in referring to the judgements blindly generated through Artificial Intelligence, which are not in existence and even if they are in existence, they do not remotely apply to the issues raised by the assessee…”
The court also observed that the findings recorded by the additional commissioner of the central GST and central excise department, by relying on the said judgements and citations were “flawed and deceptive”.
“It appears that the Commissioner, without reading the actual judgments, has followed the AI-generated citations and case law… Hence, we find that this is an appropriate case wherein some directions are called for regulating /prescribing some parameters for quasi-judicial authorities while placing reliance on the judgments either of the High Courts or of the Supreme Court of India while dealing with legal issues raised by an assessee,” the order read.
The court called on the CGST’s senior standing counsel, to respond to the concerns by the next date of hearing, March 12, when the matter will be listed on priority.
