Transforming justice systems through AI solutions.
Utkarsh Saxena is a lawyer with a decade of legal practice across various courts in India, including the Supreme Court of India, the High Court of Delhi, and District Courts. He started his career as a law clerk to Justice D. K. Jain of the Supreme Court of India and has experience in criminal, civil rights, commercial, and constitutional law. In 2022, Utkarsh was a litigant in petitioning the Supreme Court of India to legalize same sex marriage. Utkarsh is also an economist, having served as an economics research fellow at MIT under the supervision of professors and Nobel Laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijeet Banerjee and worked with Mr. Arvind Subramanium when he was Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India.
India has over 50 million criminal and civil cases pending – a backlog that at current rates of adjudication would take 300 years to clear. Cases endure an average of 12 years in the
judicial pipeline. As a result, 75% of those in Indian prisons are in pre-trial detention waiting for their cases to be heard. The backlog disproportionately affects the most marginalized and poor with two-thirds of under-trials represented by marginalized groups who cannot retain appropriate representation to advocate for faster trials. Beyond pre-trial detention, these judicial delays disrupt lives, families, and employment for parties who are waiting for resolutions, creating a cycle of poverty and economic hardship.
Utkarsh has worked on the problem of court delays and backlogs in a variety of capacities
and found that one of the core barriers to moving these cases along is that all Indian court cases require transcription and only 10% of courts have stenographers. The challenge is compounded by the number of languages spoken in India. As a result, judges must stop or slow proceedings to take their own notes, limiting the number of cases that can be heard each day. Indian courts have been stuck at their current capacity for years with little improvement in judge-to-population ratios, despite multiple reports and white papers on the subject, some of which Utkarsh has co-authored. Due to limitations of the individual approach of civil rights litigation as well as broader policy analysis and advocacy, Utkarsh pivoted to building technological innovations to transform the justice system.
In early 2024, Utkarsh founded Adalat AI to build products to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Indian courts. To start, Adalat AI has developed a next generation AI transcription tool trained on the Indian court language and preliminary pilots have shown that it can reduce case lengths by 30-50%. Adalat AI’s long-term mission extends beyond a single solution and Utkarsh wants to build a portfolio of AI tools that can automate various aspects of the judicial process based on feedback from courts on the pain points they are facing.
Utkarsh has left a stable legal career to go beyond a case-by-case approach to bring justice to the Indian court system. His legal reputation and relationships uniquely enable him to obtain high level buy-in within the system and Adalat AI has just secured a pilot with the High Court of Delhi at the Delhi District Courts. Initial traction with the transcription tool will lay the groundwork for partnering with courts on broader AI-driven transformations in the coming years. Utkarsh is initially focused on scaling Adalat AI within the Indian court system, but given the common law system shared by former British colonies around the world, there is potential to scale or replicate globally. Adalat AI has already had some promising conversations and potential support for expansion in Nigeria and Ghana.
UP’s award will support Utkarsh’s work with Adalat AI including further developing the current tool, conducting outreach and training with courts, and laying the groundwork for geographic and programmatic expansion.
Learn more about Utkarsh Saxena and Adalat AI here.
Utkarsh Saxena is a lawyer with a decade of legal practice across various courts in India, including the Supreme Court of India, the High Court of Delhi, and District Courts. He started his career as a law clerk to Justice D. K. Jain of the Supreme Court of India and has experience in criminal, civil rights, commercial, and constitutional law. In 2022, Utkarsh was a litigant in petitioning the Supreme Court of India to legalize same sex marriage. Utkarsh is also an economist, having served as an economics research fellow at MIT under the supervision of professors and Nobel Laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijeet Banerjee and worked with Mr. Arvind Subramanium when he was Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India.
India has over 50 million criminal and civil cases pending – a backlog that at current rates of adjudication would take 300 years to clear. Cases endure an average of 12 years in the
judicial pipeline. As a result, 75% of those in Indian prisons are in pre-trial detention waiting for their cases to be heard. The backlog disproportionately affects the most marginalized and poor with two-thirds of under-trials represented by marginalized groups who cannot retain appropriate representation to advocate for faster trials. Beyond pre-trial detention, these judicial delays disrupt lives, families, and employment for parties who are waiting for resolutions, creating a cycle of poverty and economic hardship.
Utkarsh has worked on the problem of court delays and backlogs in a variety of capacities
and found that one of the core barriers to moving these cases along is that all Indian court cases require transcription and only 10% of courts have stenographers. The challenge is compounded by the number of languages spoken in India. As a result, judges must stop or slow proceedings to take their own notes, limiting the number of cases that can be heard each day. Indian courts have been stuck at their current capacity for years with little improvement in judge-to-population ratios, despite multiple reports and white papers on the subject, some of which Utkarsh has co-authored. Due to limitations of the individual approach of civil rights litigation as well as broader policy analysis and advocacy, Utkarsh pivoted to building technological innovations to transform the justice system.
In early 2024, Utkarsh founded Adalat AI to build products to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Indian courts. To start, Adalat AI has developed a next generation AI transcription tool trained on the Indian court language and preliminary pilots have shown that it can reduce case lengths by 30-50%. Adalat AI’s long-term mission extends beyond a single solution and Utkarsh wants to build a portfolio of AI tools that can automate various aspects of the judicial process based on feedback from courts on the pain points they are facing.
Utkarsh has left a stable legal career to go beyond a case-by-case approach to bring justice to the Indian court system. His legal reputation and relationships uniquely enable him to obtain high level buy-in within the system and Adalat AI has just secured a pilot with the High Court of Delhi at the Delhi District Courts. Initial traction with the transcription tool will lay the groundwork for partnering with courts on broader AI-driven transformations in the coming years. Utkarsh is initially focused on scaling Adalat AI within the Indian court system, but given the common law system shared by former British colonies around the world, there is potential to scale or replicate globally. Adalat AI has already had some promising conversations and potential support for expansion in Nigeria and Ghana.
UP’s award will support Utkarsh’s work with Adalat AI including further developing the current tool, conducting outreach and training with courts, and laying the groundwork for geographic and programmatic expansion.
Learn more about Utkarsh Saxena and Adalat AI here.