What was hallucinated

Fabricated: Case Law | Fabricated case cited to support mental-health-based extension: R (on the application of Smith) v Parole Board [2005] EWCA Civ 188; SRA could not locate; judge confirmed it does not exist and appellant admitted he never checked. || Fabricated: Case Law | Cited numerous non-existent authorities (about 27) across grounds and skeleton; maintained despite SRA pointing out; appellant accepted many do not exist and that he did not check them. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Mis-cited the 2000 Ghosh authority as a House of Lords decision; the court noted it was in fact a Privy Council case. || Misrepresented: Legal Norm | Argued that the Hague Service Convention 1965 required personal service of the SDT judgment abroad; court held the Convention inapplicable to SDT disciplinary proceedings and that "sent" under PD52D sufficed (relying on Brauwers and related authorities). || Misrepresented: Legal Norm | Claimed SDT rules required personal service on him under rule 10; court held service was valid by leaving documents at his last known abode with his mother (rule 10(1)(b)).

Details

AI UseBandla denied using AI, claiming instead to have relied on Google searches to locate “supportive” case law. He admitted that he did not verify any of the citations and never checked them against official sources. The court found this unacceptable, particularly from someone formerly admitted as a solicitor.Hallucination DetailsBandla’s submissions cited at least 27 cases which the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) could not locate.Bandla maintained summaries and quotations from these cases in formal submissions. When pressed in court, he admitted having never read the judgments, let alone verified their existence.Ruling/SanctionThe High Court refused the application for an extension of time, finding Bandla’s explanations inconsistent and unreliable. The court independently struck out the appeal on grounds of abuse of process due to the submission of fake authority. It imposed indemnity costs of £24,727.20. The judge emphasized that even after being alerted to the fictitious nature of the cases, Bandla neither withdrew nor corrected them.Key Judicial ReasoningThe court found Bandla’s conduct deeply troubling, noting his previous experience as a solicitor and his professed commitment to legal standards. It held that the deliberate or grossly negligent inclusion of fake case law—especially in an attempt to challenge a disciplinary disbarment—was an abuse requiring strong institutional response.

Sanction teardown · UK, UK · 2025-05-13

Bandla v. Solicitors Regulation Authority

What happened

In UK, UK, a filing relied on Google Search (Allegedly) to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

Fabricated (Case Law)

Fabricated case cited to support mental-health-based extension: R (on the application of Smith) v Parole Board [2005] EWCA Civ 188; SRA could not locate; judge confirmed it does not exist and appellant admitted he never checked.
Fabricated (Case Law)

Cited numerous non-existent authorities (about 27) across grounds and skeleton; maintained despite SRA pointing out; appellant accepted many do not exist and that he did not check them.
Misrepresented (Case Law)

Mis-cited the 2000 Ghosh authority as a House of Lords decision; the court noted it was in fact a Privy Council case.
Misrepresented (Legal Norm)

Argued that the Hague Service Convention 1965 required personal service of the SDT judgment abroad; court held the Convention inapplicable to SDT disciplinary proceedings and that "sent" under PD52D sufficed (relying on Brauwers and related authorities).
Misrepresented (Legal Norm)

Claimed SDT rules required personal service on him under rule 10; court held service was valid by leaving documents at his last known abode with his mother (rule 10(1)(b)).

Which AI tool

Google Search (Allegedly). Note: Charlotin's public database records tool attribution only where a court order, brief, or reporting on the matter states it explicitly; "unidentified" or "implied" means the record indicates AI use but does not name a specific product — we do not guess.

Outcome

Application for extension of time refused; appeal struck out as abuse of process; indemnity costs of £24,727.20 ordered; permission to appeal denied (monetary penalty: 24727 GBP.)

Additional detail

AI UseBandla denied using AI, claiming instead to have relied on Google searches to locate “supportive” case law. He admitted that he did not verify any of the citations and never checked them against official sources. The court found this unacceptable, particularly from someone formerly admitted as a solicitor.Hallucination DetailsBandla’s submissions cited at least 27 cases which the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) could not locate.Bandla maintained summaries and quotations from these cases in formal submissions. When pressed in court, he admitted having never read the judgments, let alone verified their existence.Ruling/SanctionThe High Court refused the application for an extension of time, finding Bandla’s explanations inconsistent and unreliable. The court independently struck out the appeal on grounds of abuse of process due to the submission of fake authority. It imposed indemnity costs of £24,727.20. The judge emphasized that even after being alerted to the fictitious nature of the cases, Bandla neither withdrew nor corrected them.Key Judicial ReasoningThe court found Bandla’s conduct deeply troubling, noting his previous experience as a solicitor and his professed commitment to legal standards. It held that the deliberate or grossly negligent inclusion of fake case law—especially in an attempt to challenge a disciplinary disbarment—was an abuse requiring strong institutional response.

How Citation Safe would have caught this

Citation Safe runs three deterministic layers before a brief is filed: (1) does the citation exist against CourtListener's database of published opinions, (2) if quoted, does that exact language appear in the source, (3) does the cited case actually support the proposition it is cited for. Fabricated case citations fail Layer 1. Fabricated or misattributed quotations fail Layer 2 even when the underlying case is real. Misrepresented holdings — a real case cited for a proposition it does not support — are the target of Layer 3. None of these checks involve asking another language model whether the citation looks right; they are lookups and text-matches against the actual source, which is why a hallucinated citation has to survive a direct lookup against the authoritative source — not another model's opinion — to earn a VERIFIED stamp; our measured false-verify rate is published live at /quality.

Check a brief before you file it → · See our live false-verify rate

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/331/Venkateshwarlu_Bandla_v._SRA_UK_May_13_2025.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).