Kerala has become the first state in India to mandate artificial intelligence (AI) transcription tools for recording witness depositions in all courts. The directive, issued by the High Court of Kerala, will come into effect on November 1.
The High Court has directed all lower courts in the state to use Adalat.AI, a speech-to-text transcription tool developed by the deep-tech startup Adalat AI. The tool, incubated at MIT and Oxford and based on research at Harvard, is designed to handle legal language and Indian pronunciations.
The move follows a pilot project that began on February 1 in select courts in Ernakulam, including the Additional District and Sessions Judge (for cases of atrocities and sexual violence against women and children), Additional District and Sessions Judge VII, Principal Munsiff, and Judicial First Class Magistrate IX.
According to the memorandum, depositions will now be recorded primarily using the Adalat AI voice-to-text tool. If technical issues arise, courts may use alternative platforms, but only those approved by the High Court’s IT Directorate to ensure security and confidentiality.
Once depositions are recorded, endorsed and signed, they will be uploaded to the Digital Case Management System (DCMS) when the facility is ready. This will allow parties and lawyers to access them directly through their dashboards.
Each district will have a nodal officer responsible for implementing the directive and filing monthly reports. These will track the total number of courts, how many are still recording manually, and how many are using AI transcription.
Adalat AI says its tool is designed to be cost-effective and tuned to legal jargon, unlike generic transcription platforms. The aim is to reduce delays in recording evidence and modernise courtroom proceedings.