The sanctions record · Gujarat High Court, India, 2026
Faiz Enterprise v. State Tax Officer
Faiz Enterprise v. State Tax Officer, Unit-67, Surat, R/SCA/10123/2026 (Gujarat High Court) · oral judgment of 20 August 2026 (Supehia and Nanavati, JJ.)
Page verified 26 August 2026. Quotations are from the court’s judgment, linked below.
The first matter on this record where the AI failure sits with the decision-maker rather than a filer. A state tax officer cancelled a company’s GST registration in an order that relied, in the court’s words, on AI-generated case law exclusively, including a case that does not exist. The orders were quashed, and the statewide verification instructions that followed were incorporated into the court’s own order, with violation amounting to contempt.
The record
- CourtHigh Court of Gujarat
- BenchSupehia and Nanavati, JJ.
- DocketR/SCA/10123/2026
- Judgment20 August 2026, oral, 7 pages
- Decision-makerA State Tax Officer, a probationary quasi-judicial officer
- FabricationState of Gujarat v. Aarbee Structures Pvt. Ltd., 2024 (4) TMI 951: the case does not exist
- ApologyUnconditional, on affidavit
- InstructionsAdditional Commissioner of State Tax, 18 August 2026, to all twelve divisions
- OutcomeImpugned orders quashed; fresh notice ordered
- EnforcementViolation of the instructions “would amount to contempt of this Court”
What the court held
The cancellation order was passed “by placing reliance exclusively on the AI generated case laws”.
The statewide instructions the court incorporated require: independent verification of every AI-identified authority against primary official sources; verbatim reproduction where AI paraphrases a holding; human oversight; orders that reflect the officer’s own application of mind; and ultimate responsibility resting with the issuing authority regardless of the tools used. Breach amounts to misconduct, and, because the High Court wrote the instructions into its order, to contempt.
Why it matters
Every other matter on this record concerns a document filed with a court. Here the AI-generated authorities were inside the decision itself: the person exercising the state’s power relied on them to decide. The remedy was aimed at the institution, not only the individual. The officer apologised and the orders were quashed; the instructions bind all twelve divisions going forward, and the duty they impose is verification by the human authority before the decision issues.
The instructions state directly that responsibility stays with the issuing authority whatever tools were used. This is the first instrument on this record where AI-verification duties for decision-makers are enforceable by contempt.
The lesson for the next decision
The instructions ask for exactly what a record should show: which authorities were checked, against what primary source, by whom, before the order issued. A sealed record of that verification, made at the moment the decision is finalised, is the difference between asserting that the duty was met and being able to show it.
Sources
Related
- The full sanctions record
- Ireland’s HC 142: the declaration duty on filings
- Mavundla, the earlier South African matter
- Regulayer for institutions
Checked 26 August 2026 against the judgment, read in full from a copy bearing the High Court’s neutral citation header. 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.