How to verify a citation before you file
Draft — pending legal review. Our legal lead has not yet reviewed this guide. Read the sources before relying on anything in it.
Six checks for every case you cite: that it exists, its details, the quoted words, the pin-cite, what it held, and whether it is still good law. What each of our five results means.
Not legal advice. Our guides are general information for advocates, not legal advice. Every legal statement in them quotes or cites its source; read the source before you rely on it.
Why check every citation
On 2 July 2026 the Supreme Court said, in Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd., 2026 INSC 668, paragraph 7:
“It is necessary for Courts to adopt a zero-tolerance mode for producing, citing or using AI-generated precedents without verification. It is a misconduct on the part of an advocate to cite such judgments without verification.”
The fake material in that case was of more than one kind. In paragraph 15 the Court recorded that “some AI-generated paragraphs are wrongly attributed to genuine citations”, and described the citations before it as, among others, “Wrong citation of an existing reported judgment and a non-existent paragraph”, “Correct citation but non-existent paragraph” and “Non-existent citation”. A citation can look right and still be wrong, so each check below matters on its own.
Six checks for every case you cite
1. The judgment exists
Find the judgment itself, not a summary of it. For the Supreme Court, search the Court's own reports on its Digital Supreme Court Reports (e-SCR) portal. For a High Court, use that court's own website. If you cannot find a judgment where you looked, that tells you only that it was not there: look in the court's own records before concluding it does not exist.
2. The details match
Once you have the judgment, compare it with your citation: the parties' names, the court, the date or year, and the reporter's volume and page. A real judgment cited with the wrong volume or the wrong title is still a wrong citation. If you cite two parallel citations, check that both name the same judgment. How to read a neutral citation.
3. The quoted words are in it
If your draft quotes the judgment, find those exact words in the judgment's text. A quotation that reads well but is not in the judgment is the second kind of fake the Court described above. Note any word you changed, added or left out, and mark omissions.
4. The pin-cite points to the passage
Check the quote first, then the paragraph number. Different reports number paragraphs differently: the paragraph numbers in a commercial report may not match the Court's own numbering, and some judgments are not numbered at all. A paragraph number that differs from the Court's own text does not by itself mean the citation is wrong. What matters is that the passage you rely on is in the judgment. When you give a pin-cite, say which report's numbering you use; where the Court did not number its paragraphs, a page (and, in the SCR, the margin letter) is a safer reference.
5. It held what you say it held
Read the paragraph you rely on and the paragraphs around it. Is it the Court's reasoning, or a submission the Court recorded, or an earlier judgment it quoted? Does it decide the point your draft says it decides? In Vijay Ghanshyam Gadiya v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 947, paragraph 4, the Court found that “some of the case laws relied upon by the second respondent, which do exist, do not lay down the ratio deduced therefrom”. A real judgment can still be cited for something it does not say.
6. It is still good law
Check that the judgment has not been overruled or set aside, and whether a larger Bench has decided the point since. How to find whether a judgment was overruled.
What our checker tells you
Our checker reports each citation with one of five verification statuses, or with a note that nothing was ruled in or out (for example, when a judgment's text could not be read or checked):
| Verified | Judgment found; citation, title, year and court match; quoted text found |
|---|---|
| Details mismatch | Judgment exists, but year, volume, court or title differs |
| Quote not found | Judgment exists, but the quoted words are not anywhere in it |
| Does not exist | No judgment matches anywhere we know of |
| Not in our corpus | A court, period or reporter we do not cover yet |
“Not in our corpus” never means “Does not exist”. It means the court, period or reporter is one we do not hold yet, so we could not check it either way. Check it by hand in the court's own records.
On pin-cites we follow the quote, not the number. The quoted words are searched across the whole judgment. If they are found, we show the Court's own paragraph that has them; if your paragraph number differs, we say where the Court's text has the passage and that reports number paragraphs differently. We never say your paragraph number is wrong. Where the Court did not number its paragraphs, we say the pin-cite cannot be checked against the Court's text. If the passage is found only once a changed “not”, modal or number is set aside, we say it was found with differences and name every changed, added or omitted word, never “Verified” and never “Quote not found”: where the citation's other details match, the citation reads “Found, quote differs”; where they do not, the details result is shown as well. If we could not read a judgment's text reliably, we say the quote could not be checked, never “Quote not found”.
Checks 5 and 6 are yours. Our checker does not yet tell you whether a judgment supports the proposition you cite it for, or whether it is still good law.
Free tools
- Is this judgment real?: Paste one citation; see the Supreme Court judgment it names, every citation we know for it, and its numbered paragraphs. Free, no sign-in.
- Check a whole draft: Sign in and upload a petition or written submission; every citation in it is checked against the judgment, including the passages you quote.
- Convert a citation: Paste one Supreme Court citation (SCC, AIR, SCR, SCALE, JT or neutral); see every parallel citation we hold for the same judgment. Free, no sign-in.
- Where is this passage?: Paste a passage quoted from a Supreme Court judgment; see the judgment and the Court's paragraph it is in, or that we did not find it in the judgments we hold. Free, no sign-in.
- When does limitation run out?: Pick the article of the Limitation Act, 1963 and the start date; see the last date, with the Supreme Court's and Bombay High Court's holidays where we hold the year's calendar, and every assumption named. Free, no sign-in.
- Is it cognisable? Is it bailable?: Type a BNS or IPC section or a few words; see what the BNSS First Schedule says about the offence, with the Gazette page. Free, no sign-in.