[BREAKING] Supreme Court launches neutral citation for its judgments

The Supreme Court of India has introduced neutral citation for all its judgments, Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said in open court on Thursday.

The neutral citation will be for all the judgments delivered by the Court and will be done in three phases.

The first tranche, which includes judgments starting from 2014 till present, has already been completed.

The second tranche will be from 1995 to 2013 and the third from 1950 to 1994.

"We have launched neutral citations of the Supreme Court. This is for all the judgments of the Supreme Court," the CJI said.

The CJI also said that the Court is employing machine learning tools to translate its judgments from English to vernacular languages.

"We are using machine learning tools to translate judgments. 2,900 supreme court judgments are translated so far. We have also asked District Judges to check the machine learning translations of the judgment," he stated.

We also have a team of district judges, law researchers and high court judges to check that the machine learning translations are foolproof, he added.

A press release was issued later in the day with more details on the Neutral Citation System, which is envisioned to make it easier for Courts to publish Supreme Court judgments in the public domain by providing a consistent method of citing judicial decisions.

"Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India had directed for evolving a mechanism for standardizing citations, particularly for easing the adjudicatory process and to avoid confusion arising out of one case being cited by different people in a number of different ways, as they may rely upon different sources to read the reported case laws," the press note added.

The Neutral Citation so introduced would be the Supreme Court's approved system of citation, which would be independent of Law Reports or other publications, and unique to each decision.

Every order and judgment (reportable and non-reportable) of the Supreme Court of India would have a citation of its own, thereby facilitating easy identification, referencing, and retrieval of cases.

Apart from disclosing how earlier cases may be cited, the press note also informed that orders and judgments from January 1, 2023 onwards, would be assigned a neutral citation at the time of their publishing on the official website of the Supreme Court.

Access to such citations would be available for free to all, the press release added.

"A few decades ago, the exercise of citing cases was simple because the number of litigation was low, resulting in fewer judicial pronouncements, which were reported manageably by a handful of official law reporters. The scenario has undergone a radical change, as the number of litigation has escalated exponentially, thus paving way for numerous law reports. Additionally, several websites have started reporting case laws online owing to the development of IT facilities", it stated further.

In November last year, the Supreme Court had constituted a three-member panel of High Court judges to develop and implement a uniform and unique citation for apex court judgments.

Delhi,  Kerala High Court and Madras High Courts have already introduced neutral citation for its judgments.

[Read Press Release]