A glossary of Indian legal terms, written the way advocates actually explain them

Good law

A judgment is good law when it has not been overruled, reversed or set aside, and when no later or larger bench has taken a different view on the point you are relying on. Good law is a status, not a measure of quality. A carefully reasoned judgment stops being good law the day a larger bench decides otherwise. Before an authority goes into a filing, an advocate traces how later courts have treated it. How to check whether a judgment is still good law.

Citator

A citator is a record of how later courts have treated an earlier judgment — followed, distinguished, doubted, referred to a larger bench, or overruled. It answers a different question from a search. A search tells you a judgment exists. A citator tells you whether you can still stand on it. In Indian practice the same work is done by tracing later citations of the judgment and reading each treatment paragraph rather than the headline.

Overruled

A judgment is overruled when a later bench competent to do so holds that the earlier view was wrong in law. Overruling can be express, where the later judgment says so, or by implication, where the later judgment lays down a proposition that cannot stand together with the earlier one. An overruled judgment is no longer good law on the point overruled. Other parts of the same judgment may survive untouched, which is why the point matters more than the case.

Distinguished

A judgment is distinguished when a later court accepts it as correct but holds that it does not apply, because the facts or the statutory setting are materially different. Distinguishing does not weaken the earlier judgment. It narrows the ground on which the judgment can be used. An authority that has been distinguished many times is still good law, but it is doing far less work than its headnote suggests, and opposing counsel will know that.

Per incuriam

A decision is per incuriam when it was given in ignorance of a binding statutory provision or a binding precedent that would have altered the result. A judgment held to be per incuriam does not bind later courts even though it was never formally overruled. The finding is made by a later court. An advocate cannot declare a judgment per incuriam from the bar; the argument is made by citing the later decision that so held.

Sub silentio

A point passes sub silentio when it was assumed rather than argued and decided. If the question was never raised before the court, the judgment is not authority on it. This is why a proposition lifted from a headnote can collapse the moment the reasoning is opened: the court may never have applied its mind to the point you are using it for. Read the questions the court framed, then read what it answered.

Ratio decidendi

The ratio decidendi is the reasoning necessary to the decision — the rule the court had to apply in order to reach the result. Only the ratio binds later courts. Identifying it means reading the judgment against the questions actually framed, not against the headnote. Where two judgments appear to conflict, the conflict is very often between an observation in one and the ratio of the other, and saying so is usually the shortest answer available.

Obiter dicta

Obiter dicta are observations made by a court in passing, not necessary to the decision. Obiter of the Supreme Court carries considerable persuasive weight and is routinely followed by High Courts, but it does not bind in the way a ratio does. When you rely on a passage, know which of the two you are holding — because the other side will, and the difference decides how hard the passage can be pushed.

Precedent

A precedent is a decision that binds or persuades a later court. In India, the Supreme Court binds every court in the country. A High Court binds the courts subordinate to it within its territory. A larger bench binds a smaller bench of the same court, and a coordinate bench that disagrees refers the question to a larger bench rather than deciding contrary to it. A High Court judgment is persuasive, not binding, in the territory of another High Court.

Pin cite

A pin cite is a citation to the exact paragraph or page a proposition comes from, rather than to the judgment as a whole. Paragraph 34 of a judgment is a pin cite. The case name alone is not. Pin cites are what allow a bench, or opposing counsel, to verify a proposition in seconds rather than reading forty pages. Every answer in Lawgger carries one, down to the page of the judgment.

Table of Authorities

A Table of Authorities is a list of every case, statute and provision cited in a brief, usually with the page or paragraph at which each appears. Courts in several jurisdictions require one to be filed. Its more useful function is as a checklist: read down the table before filing and it tells you exactly what still has to be verified, including whether each authority is still good law.

Case citation

A case citation is the reference that lets anyone locate a judgment — party names, year, reporter and page, or a neutral citation assigned by the court itself. Indian practice uses reporter citations such as AIR and SCC alongside neutral citations, so a single judgment can carry several citations at once. A citation that cannot be resolved to a judgment on the record is not a citation. Why AI tools produce citations that resolve to nothing.

Headnote

A headnote is the summary written by a law reporter at the head of a reported judgment. It is an editorial aid. It is not part of the judgment and it does not bind. Headnotes compress, and compression drops conditions. Where a case matters to your matter, treat the headnote as a direction to the right paragraph, and treat the paragraph as the thing you argue from.

Coram

Coram means "before" — the judge or judges who heard the matter. It appears on cause lists, on orders and at the head of reported judgments. Coram matters for two separate reasons. On a cause list it tells you which bench is seized of the matter and therefore which court to be in. In a reported judgment it establishes bench strength, and bench strength decides what the judgment binds.

Bench strength

Bench strength is the number of judges who decided a matter: a single judge, a Division Bench of two, a Full Bench of three in a High Court, or a Constitution Bench of five or more in the Supreme Court. A larger bench prevails over a smaller bench of the same court. Bench strength is the first thing to check when two judgments of the same court point in opposite directions.

Limitation period

A limitation period is the time within which a proceeding must be brought, counted from the date on which the right to sue accrues. If it expires, the remedy is barred even where the claim itself is sound. Different proceedings run on different clocks, and the clock is affected by statutory exclusions, by court closures and by condonation. How limitation is computed, step by step.

Condonation of delay

Condonation of delay is the court's power, under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1963, to admit an appeal or application filed after the prescribed period where sufficient cause is shown for the delay. It is not automatic, it is not available for every proceeding, and it is not available for a suit. Where it applies, the application explaining the delay is filed along with the main matter, not afterwards.

Court vacation

A court vacation is a period during which a court does not hold its ordinary sittings, with vacation benches taking urgent matters. Vacation affects listing, and it can affect a deadline: where a court is closed on the last day of a limitation period, section 4 of the Limitation Act allows the filing to be made on the day the court reopens. Vacation dates differ from court to court.

Partial court working days

Partial court working days is the term now used in place of "vacation" in the rules of some courts, for periods in which the court sits for limited purposes rather than closing entirely. Matters listed on such days are generally urgent or of specified categories. For planning purposes such a day is neither an ordinary working day nor a holiday, and how it is treated depends on the court's own calendar.

Adjournment

An adjournment is the postponement of a hearing to a later date. It may be sought by a party or directed by the court, and it is recorded in the order sheet along with the next date. Adjournments are the single largest influence on how long a matter takes, which is why the next date is worth more to a client than any other line on the record.

Next date

The next date (tarikh) is the date on which the matter will next be listed. It appears in the order sheet and on the case record after every hearing. It is the one piece of information every client asks for and the one most often conveyed wrongly, because it changes when a matter is transferred, tagged, passed over or taken up out of turn. Tracking next dates by CNR.

Lawgger works in ten Indian languages, so a research question asked in Hindi returns an answer pin-cited to the same judgment as the same question asked in English.