BRUSSELS — Law schools across India will need to overhaul their curricula if the judiciary is to use artificial intelligence without losing its human core, a senior legal academic argued here Monday. Prof. (Dr.) Ashutosh Mishra, Registrar of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar National Law University in Sonipat, told an international conference that AI can handle legal research, document management, case administration and translation.
But he drew a hard line on what machines should never touch: constitutional values, judicial independence, ethical standards and human sensitivity. The conference, organised by the Centre for Indo-European Cooperation, drew judges, legal scholars, policymakers, researchers, diplomats and technology experts from India and Europe.
They gathered to debate AI’s growing role in judicial systems. Mishra’s message was blunt. AI is a support tool.
Not a substitute. The nature of judicial decision-making itself is at stake if that line blurs, he argued.
But his wider point landed on the classroom, not the courtroom. Law schools, he said, must prepare future lawyers and judges for an AI-enabled justice ecosystem. That means interdisciplinary education.
Advanced research. Skill development. And academic programmes that weave technological competence together with constitutional values, ethical governance and the rule of law.
The implications for Indian law students are concrete. A judge who cannot assess the biases baked into an AI tool is a judge who cannot fully assess a case.
A lawyer who cannot interrogate algorithmic recommendations is a lawyer missing part of the argument. Mishra’s call pushes legal education toward a hybrid model — one that treats coding and ethics as equally foundational. For Indian universities, this is no small shift.
Most law programmes in India remain siloed. Computer science sits in a separate building, often a separate campus.
Interdisciplinary courses are rare. Faculty trained in both law and technology are rarer still. Mishra did not offer a blueprint.
He did not name specific courses or timelines. But his framing was clear: the technology is coming. Courts will use it.
The question is whether the people running those courts — and the lawyers arguing before them — understand what they are using. The conference backdrop matters.
Brussels is home to European Union institutions that have already passed the AI Act, a regulatory framework that classifies AI systems by risk. Indian courts, by contrast, operate without a comprehensive national AI law. The gap between the two legal ecosystems is wide.
Mishra’s audience included European judges and policymakers who have grappled with these questions for years. Their presence underscored a quiet reality: India is playing catch-up, and the classroom is where that catch-up starts.
He argued for a justice system that is more efficient, transparent and accessible. AI can help deliver that. But only if the humans in the system are trained to manage it, not be managed by it.
The conference room was full. The discussion after Mishra’s address was pointed. No one disagreed with his core premise.
The disagreement, where it surfaced, was about speed — how fast to move, how much to trust, how hard to push. Mishra’s answer was measured.
Move. But do not replace. Teach.
But do not surrender the bench to a machine.
