A division bench of Apex Court was surprised to know that fake judgments mentioned in NCLT Judgment were not caught by NCLAT.

From Paras 15 and 16,

15. It is not in dispute that the judgments relied upon by the NCLT are non-existent, and some AI-generated paragraphs are wrongly attributed to genuine citations. An independent examination undertaken by us reveals the following about the judgments relied upon by the adjudicating authority: State Bank of India v. M/s Shree Ram Urban Infrastructure Ltd., 2020 SCC OnLine SC 341 (cited in para 44 of NCLT judgment) – Wrong citation of an existing reported judgment6 and a non-existent paragraph, Everest Kento Cylinders Ltd. v. Union of India (2015) 2 SCC 1 (cited in para 45 of NCLT judgment) – Correct citation but nonexistent paragraph, ICICI Bank Ltd. v. Urban Infrastructure Real Estate Ltd., (2019) 16 SCC 528 (cited in para 47 of NCLT judgment) – Nonexistent citation, V.S. Dempo & Co. Ltd. v. Reliance Communications Ltd., (2021) 10 SCC 176 (cited in para 49 of NCLT judgment) – Nonexistent citation, Canara Bank v. N.G. Subbaraya Setty & Anr., (2018) 16 SCC 228 (cited in para 51 of NCLT judgment) – Correct citation but non-existent paragraph and Sarbjit Singh v. Union Bank of India, (2022) 7 SCC 464 (cited in para 53 of NCLT judgment) – Non-existent citation.
16. Respondent No. 1 has filed an affidavit indicating that the alleged judgments relied on by NCLT were not cited by its counsel at the bar. The affidavit also indicates that the so-called precedents relied on by the adjudicating authority were obtained through its own research. What about the Appellate Tribunal? The fake, non-existent judgments escaped scrutiny by the first statutory appellate tribunal. Today’s courts and tribunals implicitly trust lawyers when referring to precedents cited before them. Imagine the hardship of a situation in which the Court must verify the authenticity of each judgment cited by an advocate.

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