SC orders reinstatement of 36 teachers citing court’s use of ‘hallucinating’ AI

The Supreme Court has ordered the immediate reinstatement of 36 high school teachers in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, while expressing concern that the province’s service tribunal may have relied on “hallucinating” AI to produce fake legal citations.

The order delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi, Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb overturned a consolidated judgment dated July 14, 2025 of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal (KP-ST) which had upheld the teachers’ dismissal.

The Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education (DESE) KP had repeatedly sought to terminate the services of the 36 petitioners — most of whom were appointed or regularized around 2012 and 2013 — claiming that their original appointment orders were bogus.

Procedural errors and lack of evidence

The Supreme Court (SC) ruled that DESE had violated essential due process requirements. The teachers had been reinstated in earlier stages of the protracted trial, confirming their status as civil servants. Therefore, any punishment for misconduct, such as termination based on alleged fraud, required strict adherence to the KP Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 2011 (KPEDR, 2011).

The court found that the inquiry conducted by the Directorate was merely a “fact-finding” and was insufficient to serve as a substitute for a formal departmental inquiry mandated by the KPEDR, 2011.

Crucially, the SC highlighted that the internal investigation report – on which the directorate based its dismissal – did not in fact conclude that the petitioners’ appointments were illegal or that the teachers themselves had committed fraud. Indeed, the report expressed strong disapproval of DESE’s conduct, noting that the allegations of fake recommendations by the Public Service Commission (KP-PSC) were “non-specific” and did not show “any lapse or fraud committed by the appellants”.

Despite this, the KP-ST upheld the dismissal, resulting in the teacher’s service being terminated.

“Hallucinating” AI

The SC noted with “dismay” that the KP-ST, in reaching its conclusion that the appointments were void ab initio, invoked several legal citations that do not exist.

The judgment held that searches conducted by both citation and case title confirmed that the cases referred to by the court were fabricated. The SC suggested that the KP-ST may have relied on artificial intelligence, which may have “hallucinated” in generating the citations, and reiterated an earlier expressed caution regarding the use of AI in judicial decision-making.

The court ordered that the petitioners be reinstated in service. While allowing DESE to conduct a fresh investigation, it mandated that any such action must be carried out strictly in accordance with the KPEDR, 2011.