Nasscom urged the Supreme Court to define "high-risk AI" and clarify audit procedures in its draft regulations for court use. The industry body fears vague terms could lead to inconsistent interpretations and mandatory source code disclosures for third-party vendors. This creates a direct tension between judicial oversight and AI vendor IP protection.
How We Got Here
The Supreme Court’s AI Committee, led by Justice P.S. Narasimha, released its draft AI regulations for courts on June 3, inviting comments until June 20. These rules aim to govern AI use across all Indian courts, permitting legal research and transcription but specifically banning AI for adjudication or sentencing.
The Numbers
- Nasscom flagged three specific undefined terms: "Substantial risk of harm" (Reg 3(1)(e)), "High-risk applications" (Reg 7(3)), and "Risk profile of the relevant task" (Reg 12(1)).
- The body requested illustrative guidance for risk classification, mapped directly to permissible use cases under Regulation 19.
- Regulation 38(2) on technical audits is the specific clause Nasscom believes could imply automatic source code disclosure.
- Nasscom proposes a risk-based, layered assurance model for audits, reserving white-box inspection for "high-risk, custom-built, court-hosted, incident-involved, or materially rights-affecting" systems.
- Most government and enterprise AI deployments use grey-box audits, reviewing documentation and model cards, rather than full source code access.
What Happens Next
🇮🇳 Why This Matters for India
For legal tech founders in Bangalore and product managers building AI tools for government clients, these definitions dictate what they can build and how much IP they might need to expose.
The Take
Mandating white-box audits for all AI vendors would force courts into expensive, custom-built solutions, killing the adoption of off-the-shelf, low-risk tools. The smarter play is adopting risk-based API-level audits for most deployments and only requesting deeper access when actual risk warrants it.
Source:
MediaNama ↗