Every law student eventually needs to track down a case. It might be a judgment for a moot memorial, the status of a matter you are following during an internship, or an order in a family dispute back home. India’s courts have put an enormous amount of this information online over the last decade, but it is spread across several portals that each work a little differently.
This guide explains where to look, what details you need before you start, and how to get around the most common problems, including access from outside India.
Start with the CNR number
Every case in the district judiciary has a CNR, or Case Number Record, a unique sixteen character code that stays with the case for its whole life. With the CNR, a search on the eCourts portal takes seconds. Without it, you need the court, the case type, the case number and year, or at least a party’s name. If you are following a case for a client or a relative, ask for the CNR first. It is printed on most orders and on the case status page.
District courts: the eCourts portal and app
The eCourts Services portal and its mobile app cover district and taluka courts across the country. You can search by CNR, party name, advocate name, filing number or FIR number, and see the next hearing date, the history of hearings and, in most courts, copies of interim orders and final judgments. Each court’s cause list is published there too, which helps when you want to know whether a matter will actually be taken up tomorrow.
Expect captchas and the occasional timeout, especially in the mornings when practitioners check the day’s lists. If a search fails, try again with fewer details, since a small mismatch in the spelling of a party’s name can return nothing at all.
High Courts and the Supreme Court
Each High Court runs its own website with case status, cause lists and judgments, and many can also be searched through the High Court services section of eCourts. The Supreme Court’s website lets you search by diary number or case number and download judgments and daily orders, while its e-SCR portal offers judgments in the format of the official Supreme Court Reports free of charge.
The National Judicial Data Grid adds the bigger picture. It shows pendency and disposal figures for courts across the country, now including the High Courts and the Supreme Court, which makes it invaluable for research papers on delays and case management.
Accessing Indian court websites from abroad
LLM students overseas, NRI litigants following a property dispute and foreign researchers often find that some court and government portals load slowly, fail repeatedly or refuse connections from outside India altogether. Many of these sites run on government infrastructure with strict security settings, and foreign traffic is sometimes filtered out.
Where that happens, researchers and NRI families sometimes use an India proxy server so the browser connects through an Indian address and the public pages open normally. Keep it to public information such as case status, cause lists and published judgments. Institutional logins for paid databases are licensed to your university and should not be shared or routed through third parties, and anything involving e-filing or court fee payments belongs on the official channels, which rely on OTPs sent to an Indian mobile number anyway.
Finding judgments for free
You do not need a paid subscription to find most reported judgments.
- Indian Kanoon, a free search engine covering Supreme Court and High Court judgments along with central acts
- The Judgment Search portal under the eCourts project, which offers free text search of High Court judgments
- The Supreme Court’s e-SCR portal for reported Supreme Court judgments
- India Code, the official repository of central and state legislation, for the current text of acts and rules
- Tribunal websites such as those of the NCLT, NCLAT, ITAT and NGT for their own orders
Always check that a judgment is still good law. Search for later decisions that cite it, and look at whether a larger bench or an amendment has changed the position since. The Supreme Court also publishes translations of many judgments into regional languages, which helps when explaining a ruling to a client more comfortable in Hindi, Marathi or Tamil.
What paid databases add
SCC Online, Manupatra and similar services add headnotes, citators, cross-references and editorial summaries that make research much faster, and most law schools provide student access. Learn the citator function early. Seeing at a glance which later judgments followed, distinguished or overruled a case saves hours before a moot or an exam. If your college has no subscription, ask the library about remote access or use a nearby court or bar association library, which usually subscribes.
Certified copies and the limits of online records
A printout from a court website is not a certified copy. When a document is needed as evidence, in another court or for official purposes such as a property transaction or a visa application, apply to the court’s copying section for a certified copy, which many courts now accept online. Online case status can also lag behind events, so for anything important confirm with the registry or the advocate on record.
Research habits for moots and internships
Cite judgments the way your moot rules or your senior prefer, and note parallel citations across reporters, since the bench may use a different one. Recent Supreme Court judgments also carry a neutral citation, which makes them easy to identify regardless of the reporter. Keep a simple research log of what you searched, where and when, so you can retrace your steps, and always check a quotation against the original PDF rather than a summary, because paraphrases drift from the text surprisingly quickly.
FAQ
What is a CNR number?
- A sixteen character unique code given to every case in the district courts, used to find it quickly on the eCourts portal and app.
Where can I read Supreme Court judgments for free?
- On the Supreme Court’s website and its e-SCR portal, and through free databases such as Indian Kanoon.
Is an online judgment copy valid in court?
- Not as a certified copy. Apply to the court’s copying section whenever a certified copy is required.
Why can’t I open Indian court websites from abroad?
- Some government-hosted portals filter foreign traffic for security reasons. Try again later, use the court’s helpline or ask someone in India to check.