How to check a Supreme Court citation before you cite it

Since 6 July 2023 the Supreme Court gives every judgment and order a neutral citation: a number the Court assigns itself, such as 2023 INSC 1, made of the year of pronouncement, INSC for the India Supreme Court, and a running number. The Court's notice describes it as a “unique sequential number to each judgment as a permanent identification”.

The launch notice of 6 July 2023 covers judgments and orders from 1 January 2014 onward, and says each must carry its neutral citation and a QR code on the top left corner of its opening page. A circular of 27 September 2023 extended neutral citations to the reported judgments of 1950 to 2013 published in the Supreme Court Reports. An unreported judgment from before 2014 may have none.

The Supreme Court Reports (SCR) are the Court's official law report, cited by year, volume and page. Private law reports have their own citations and their own paragraph numbers, which can differ from the Court's copy.

The Supreme Court Reports portal finds a judgment by its SCR citation or its neutral citation, or by words in its text. The Court's judgment search finds it by diary number, case number, judge, judgment date or free text, and a separate neutral citation search lists citations by date. Each search asks for a CAPTCHA.

A citation that leads to no judgment on the Court's own website is the clearest warning sign. Courts have already acted against judgments and orders that relied on citations which did not exist, as our guide to citation risk sets out.

On the opening page, match the parties, the case number, the date of judgment and the neutral citation against what you were given. Note the judges and how many sat, since a larger bench's view binds a smaller one, and Article 145(3) of the Constitution requires at least five judges for a substantial question of constitutional interpretation.

The Supreme Court has said that numbered paragraphs make judgments easier to cite. In B.S. Hari Commandant v. Union of India (13 April 2023) it said:

“It is desirable that all Courts and Tribunals, as a matter of practice, number paragraphs in all Orders and Judgments in seriatim” (para 56)

Older judgments often have no numbers in the Court's copy, and a private report may number the same text differently. The passage on paragraph numbers in State Bank of India v. Ajay Kumar Sood is para 20 in the Court's copy, while B.S. Hari quotes it as para 21 from a law report. Cite the paragraph as it appears in the copy you file, and give the page where there is no number.

Read the whole paragraph and check that every word you quote is in it, in the same order. A summary from a headnote, a digest or an AI tool tells you where to look; the paragraph is what you cite. Check too that the paragraph states the Court's own view and is not a submission it was recording or rejecting.

Under Article 141 the law declared by the Supreme Court binds every court in India, so a later or larger bench can overrule or narrow what you are citing. Look for later judgments that cite yours and read how they dealt with it before you rely on it.

For final hearings before Constitution Benches and other benches with large records, a circular of 3 April 2024 requires written submissions to cite the Court's decisions by neutral citation and copies of judgments to come from the Supreme Court Reports:

“All references to the Supreme Court of India's decisions in written submissions must use neutral citations (INSC)”

Check the current circulars of the court you appear in before you file.

Vakilat runs steps 1, 3 and 4 on every answer before you see it: each authority is a Supreme Court judgment it holds, taken from the Court's website and opened at the paragraph it relies on, and every quotation is matched word for word. Each judgment also lists the later judgments in Vakilat that cite it, for step 5. See how the checks work, or try it on a citation you have: searching and reading judgments is free.

• Supreme Court notice on neutral citations, 27 April 2023
• Supreme Court notice launching neutral citations, 6 July 2023
• Supreme Court circular on neutral citations for reported judgments of 1950 to 2013, 27 September 2023
• Supreme Court circular on written submissions and compilations, 3 April 2024
• Supreme Court circular launching the SCR portal, 9 May 2025
• Supreme Court Reports portal
• Supreme Court judgment search
• B.S. Hari Commandant v. Union of India, 13 April 2023, paras 56 and 57
• State Bank of India v. Ajay Kumar Sood, 16 August 2022, para 20
• The Constitution of India, Articles 141 and 145(3)

This guide is general information about published court practice and is not legal advice.