The Indian legal system is a combination of statutory law and case laws. The statute usually comprises of Articles or sections, which signify the overall principle. However, it is the Court who interprets and gives the section or Article its true meaning. For example, the Supreme Court recently held that Privacy is a fundamental right and is an integral part of Article 21, which merely states that right to life and liberty is a fundamental right. Thus, interpretation and explanation of the statutes or recognition of legal principles are done by the Courts, making Indian courts judgments an essential vehicle for the evolution of law. Thus, case law research and development of efficient Indian case law search engines such as Legitquest become imperative for enhancing the quality and efficacy of the whole justice dispensing machinery in India.
Law is the reflection of society and is transient in nature. In India, the law has evolved from the religious prescriptions in the Vedic age to that written down by Manu in the later Vedic Age, to the justice meted out by the King, the Qazi, and secular courts in the Mughal period. The British East India Company brought the common system of law prevalent in England to India and replaced the Mughal legal system. With the Charter of 1726 granted by King George I, the East India Company established Mayor’s Courts in the three presidencies, Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, and slowly evolved and transformed the law of the land, giving it the rudimentary shape it is in today. Codification of law came much later to India in 1872 with the Indian Penal Code, Indian Contract Act and so on. India today has evolved an organic system of law, a combination of statutory law as well as judicial pronouncements as an outcome of its British antecedents.
Common law is the judge-made system of law which is developed through decisions of the courts. In the early stages, the barristers and judges relied upon the decisions of the Courts in England to decide matters in India. This practice paved the way for recognizing the concept of precedents or the doctrine of stare decisis as an important part of the legal system, thereby enshrining it in the Constitution in the form of Article 141 which stipulates that the decisions by the Supreme Court would be binding on all the Courts of India. The same status is given to High Court decisions in the respective States. Though the decision of one High Court is not binding on the others, it may have persuasive value. Thus, Indian court judgments play a significant role in the development of law and form an integral part of the lawyer’s arguments while building a case.
Case law research and analysis is a prerequisite in the legal profession, and the process of acquiring this skill set begins from the very first day of law school when one embarks upon the journey of exploring, understanding and applying the law in the practical scenario. Reading a case law, comprehending the rationale behind the decision and relating it to the present case to build a cogent and coherent argument is a skill every lawyer aspires to acquire. A well-researched and articulated argument assists the Court in deciding the case, which in turn accelerates the process of justice dispensation, which is ideally the ultimate aim of the entire exercise of litigation.
The traditional way of case law research and hunting for Indian court judgments was scanning through hard-bound A.I.Rs, Criminal Law journals, etc. which were published periodically and were subscribed by lawyers who received the copies. Properly stacked and numbered according to the date and year of publication of the reporter, the unending shelves of A.I.Rs and S.C.Cs grace every law library and chambers of reputed lawyers. In this endless sea of case laws, finding the most relevant case law was a daunting task. This mind-deadening and the time-consuming process was revolutionized by the internet age where all the information became available at the click of a button.
Technological advancement transformed the approach to case law research both globally as well as in India. Statistics show that about 33.9% of the lawyers initiate their study by using Google. The outcome of the search may not always be helpful and precise as Google is a generic search engine. Thus, the need for case law search engine arises which is tailor-made for the legal industry. Enterprising tech-savvy lawyers and innovative tech wizards at Legitquest understood this need and decided to conjure an Indian case law search engine which would accelerate the process of legal research and give the most relevant results. They concocted iSearch, a product powered by Artificial Intelligence, which has the potential of transforming the way Indian case law search engines are perceived and used by professionals.
Legitquest is a legal database search portal with Indian court judgments and with over a million records. It has iSearch, a case law search engine which is designed to give the most accurate legal search results within seconds. What sets iSearch apart from the rest of the Indian case law search engines is the effectiveness of the search results, which is achieved by adopting the most advanced technology and discarding the rudimentary Boolean method usually used in search engines. The applicability of iSearch is that it is not only restricted to case laws but all forms of legal documents, be it Statutes, Regulations, Templates, etc. The search is based on legal taxonomy and has various special features such as auto-complete, which assists the whole process of case law research. iSearch provides data in an uncluttered, user-friendly manner with options to broaden or constrict searches, endeavoring to assist in finding the significant needle in the haystack.
Case law research does not end by finding the relevant case law alone. That is just the tip of the iceberg. The real challenge begins when the researcher has to deconstruct the case law and apply the principles fruitfully conveyed in the case law to suit his case. A case law has various constituents. It broadly comprises of the name of the Court, followed by the names of the parties, citation, the facts of the case, the issues of law and fact, the findings of the Court, the arguments of the counsels of both the parties and finally the reasoning and the judgment. In case of law analysis, the decision, the reasoning, the arguments forwarded by the counsels and the findings are the most significant, as they form the essence of the case law. However, Indian court judgments are incredibly comprehensive and hence are lengthy documents, and perusing every line to get to the relevant portion is an arduous and time taking task. This acts as a great impediment to legal research. Legitquest aims to resolve this problem by bringing elements of Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, and Data Analytics together and creating an innovative feature called iDRAF.
iDRAF stands for Decision Reasoning Arguments Findings. Combining the expertise of Attorneys and Engineers, this feature aids the user to find the iDRAF of the case within seconds. It contains tabs which direct the user to the specific portions of the Indian court judgments as a result of algorithms which cull out the segments containing facts, issues, arguments, reasoning, and decision. The task of reading an entire judgment to understand the crux of the matter which would ordinarily take hours can now be completed within minutes, thereby increasing the efficiency of case law research and analysis fourfold.
The course of case law research and studying Indian court judgments has one more critical element that is, the treatment of a case law. Law is organic, and hence the essence of the judgments also evolves over time. What was once considered illegal by the Supreme Court in the yesteryears may have been revised and altered over the years. Legitquest’s iGraphics feature gives a graphical representation of the number of times the case has been relied upon, overruled, distinguished, approved/affirmed, followed and referred to, respectively. Now one does not have to read the entire document only to find out that it has been overruled. The persuasive value may also be gauged by the number of times the case law has been cited or used in other cases, which can be seen in the graph. The list of cases where the relevant case was used is also available on the same page, making it easier to study and build a comprehensive understanding required to construct a cogent argument.