The sanctions record · Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, 2026
Dey v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (No 2)
[2026] FedCFamC2G 1799, MLG 1637 of 2020 · Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2), General Federal Law · Judge Bingham · 14 September 2026
Page verified 26 September 2026. Reasons for judgment read in full, eighty-four paragraphs; every quotation is from them. Source: the judgment as published on AustLII, obtained as a PDF from the AI Hallucination Cases document store because AustLII refuses automated retrieval.
A personal costs order, not an AI fine. The court ordered solicitor Gurdial Singh Ranjit Singh to pay the Minister’s costs, fixed at A$9,600. That sum is three amounts, and the AI is part of the basis, not the whole of it: A$3,500 for an adjournment caused by his undisclosed role in the case, A$2,600 as his share of the costs of the judicial review he prepared, and A$3,500 for the costs proceeding, where his improper use of generative AI, his failures to attend court and his late filings were the grounds. He admitted eleven hallucinated authorities across two submissions. He was named in the judgment as a public reprimand and was not referred to the regulator.
The record
- CourtFederal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2), General Federal Law
- JudgeJudge Bingham
- CaseMLG 1637 of 2020, the costs of a migration judicial review
- Date14 September 2026
- SanctionedGurdial Singh Ranjit Singh, a sole practitioner who practises primarily in migration law. The court declined to anonymise him
- ToolGenerative AI, not named. Use admitted for both the judicial review submissions and the first costs submission
- False authoritiesEleven, admitted: six in the judicial review submissions and five in the first costs submission. He admitted them “only after the Court sought clarification as to the existence of the authorities from him”
- AmountA$9,600 of the Minister’s costs, personally, made up of A$3,500, A$2,600 and A$3,500, each fixed separately in the reasons (paragraphs 60, 62 and 74). The client was separately ordered to pay A$6,700
- AuthorityRule 22.06 of the Division 2 General Federal Law Rules on costs against lawyers; section 486F of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth); the court’s inherent supervisory jurisdiction over lawyers
- DisciplineNo referral to the regulator. The court made no finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct, which it said are matters for the regulator
What the court found
Two sets of failures sit in one judgment. The first is about how he acted: he drafted and settled the client’s application without disclosing his involvement, “in the shadows”, which caused an adjournment, and he then failed to attend two hearings on costs, one with half an hour’s notice. The court called that conduct “tantamount to treating the Court, Mr Dey, and the Minister’s lawyers with contempt”.
The second is the AI. The court identified the hallucinated authorities itself:
“Court resources were utilised to fact check submissions prepared by a legal practitioner. It is unacceptable that this occurred. The Court expects that a lawyer will use their expertise and ensure that the authorities relied upon in submissions do in fact exist and are not a mere hallucination of a generative AI program.”
The court was clear that the tool was not the offence: “There is no blanket prohibition upon the use of generative AI.” It found that placing hallucinated authorities before the court was “improper conduct and a breach of his duties to the Court”, done “not once but in two separate submissions”, the second after an earlier decision of the same court, in the field he professes to specialise in, had described the dangers. “Due to his failure to verify authorities in the submissions that he prepared, he recklessly misled the Court.”
On sanction, the court listed what was available: personal costs orders, admonishment and disapproval, and referral to the regulator. It chose costs and naming. It declined to refer him, having considered the approaches in earlier decisions including Dayal, because he acknowledged the error, apologised to the court, his client and the Minister, took professional development on the responsible use of AI and now verifies his filings; the judge found his remorse genuine and repetition “very unlikely”. Being named was the reprimand: the court considered it “in the interests of justice and within the inherent supervisory jurisdiction of the Court over lawyers”.
Why it matters
The number needs care. A$9,600 is not a price for eleven false authorities. It is a costs order covering an undisclosed role, missed hearings, late filings and the AI failures together, and any report of it as a standalone AI fine is wrong. What the judgment does show is how an Australian court now prices the burden: the Minister’s wasted costs, and the court’s own time spent checking whether cited authorities exist.
It also shows the menu. Referral, the step that Dayal made familiar, was open and was not taken, and the reason was what the practitioner did afterwards. The court’s practice direction on AI came into effect on 29 May 2026, after these submissions were filed, so the duty the court applied was the ordinary duty to the court, not a new rule.
The lesson for the next filing
The court found the false authorities before the practitioner did, and nothing in the record showed that anyone had checked them before filing. The mitigation that kept him from a referral, verification after the event, was a promise about the future rather than a record of the past.
Regulayer™ creates checkable evidence of who approved exact words and when: which AI was used, what a named person reviewed, and the document it was sealed to, made at the time and verifiable free by the court without trusting the person who made it. It does not do the checking. It shows that the checking happened, and who stood behind it.
Sources
- Dey v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (No 2) [2026] FedCFamC2G 1799 (14 September 2026), the reasons for judgment as published on AustLII, read in full for this page from Damien Charlotin’s AI Hallucination Cases document store
Related
- The full sanctions record
- Dayal, and the regulator outcome, one of the decisions this court considered before declining a referral
- Australia, the courts’ AI practice notes
- Aguilar v. The Crawford Group, the same failure in a United States federal court, the same month
Verified 26 September 2026 against the reasons for judgment, read in full. Amounts are in Australian dollars. Information, not legal advice.
Information, not legal advice. Every entry is verified against the court’s own document or contemporaneous reporting; where a source is reporting rather than the document, we say so.