Court cases
Court cases finds a matter across the Supreme Court, High Courts, district courts and tribunals, and imports its orders straight into your files. It is the tab the Lookup home opens on.
The form has nine fields, but it does not look like a nine-field form. One field is the search bar, one rides inside the bar as a chip, and the other seven sit behind a disclosure. That is deliberate: a party name and a court is a search, and nine labelled boxes is a form nobody fills in.
The search bar
Search by party or advocate
The bar is the Party or advocate name field. It is not required, so you can search on filters alone.
| Control | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Party or advocate name | The search bar itself | Free text. Prompted with e.g. Reliance Industries, or an advocate's name. The line beneath the bar states the rule: Searches petitioners, respondents and advocates. |
| State | A quiet chip inside the bar, on the right | Opens a list of states. Reads Anywhere until you choose one. |
| Bookmark | An icon button between the chip and Search | Saves the query currently in the form. Disabled until at least one field has a value. See Saved searches. |
| Search | Right end of the bar | Runs the search and returns to page 1. Reads Searching… while it runs, and is disabled for that time. |
The State chip is the one filter the bar carries, and it is worth understanding what it does. State exists to narrow the Court list, not the search. Choosing Maharashtra on its own does not restrict your results to Maharashtra, because the register searches a court rather than a state. Pick a state so that Court has something usable in it, then pick the court.
If the state list cannot be loaded, the chip is disabled and a line appears under the bar: Could not load these options. You can still search without this filter. The search still runs.
More filters
The disclosure is labelled More filters (7). The number is the count of fields hidden under it, so the label tells you whether opening it is worth the click.
Open the seven fields
The disclosure toggles the panel under the bar. Your search text and the State chip stay as they are.
| Control | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| CNR number | Text | The national case number, prompted with 16-character CNR. If you have it, it identifies the matter exactly and no other field is needed. |
| Court | Picker, depends on State | Narrows to a single court. Disabled and reading Choose a state first until a state is set. Leave it blank to search everywhere: a court filter can only reduce what you find. |
| Case number | Text | The matter number, prompted with e.g. 1234. |
| Year | Picker | The current year and the forty preceding it. Reads Any year when unset. |
| Status | Picker | Pending or Disposed. Reads Any when unset. |
| Filed after | Date | Lower bound on the filing date. |
| Filed before | Date | Upper bound on the filing date. |
Every one of these is optional. A blank filter widens the search rather than breaking it.
Clear filters
Clear filters appears beneath the panel as soon as any field has a value, including the search bar and the chip. It empties the whole form in one press. It does not clear results already on screen; the next Search does that.
Reading a result list
Results appear under the panel, twenty to a page.
The line above the list
The first line above the results is the one that tells you how complete the list is. There are three forms, and the difference between them matters.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| 142 results (or 1 result) | The register returned a total. The count is the whole matching set. |
| Showing 20 matches. There may be more. Refine the search or page through. | The register did not give a total but says there is more. Use the pager, or narrow the search. |
| Showing the top 20 matches. Narrow the search to see different results. | The list is capped at what you can see. There is no page 2 to reach. Change the search rather than paging. |
Read that line before drawing any conclusion from the list. A capped or filtered result set is not evidence that a party has no other matters.
The notice line
Underneath the count, the register may add a sentence of its own. It appears whenever a valid search legitimately matched nothing in the scope you chose. Filter to one court and find nothing there and it reads:
No matters found in the selected court. Try searching without a court filter.
An empty result
When nothing matches at all, the list is replaced by No matching records found., with the register's notice as the explanation beneath it where there is one. An unexplained blank list is never shown.
A result row
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Title | The matter, as the register composes it. |
| Second line | The registration or filing number, the court, and Filed with the filing date. Parts the register did not supply are simply absent. |
| Status badge | The register's own status label. Disposed renders neutral, anything else informational. |
Clicking a row opens the record.
The pager
The pager appears under the list whenever you are past page 1 or a next page exists.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Page indicator | Reads Page 3 of 8 where a total is known, and Page 3 where it is not. |
| Previous | Goes back a page. Disabled on page 1. |
| Next | Goes forward a page. Disabled when the register says there is nothing further, so it never re-runs the same call. |
The record panel
Opening a result replaces the home. The hero and the tab strip disappear, because you are reading a result rather than starting one.
Read the record, import its orders
The register's fields sit at the top, the two hand-off buttons under them, and Documents at the foot with the folder picker and the import button.
| Region | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Header | The matter title, the record id beneath it, and Close on the right. Close returns to the home with your search and results still there. |
| Field grid | The register's fields, laid out in up to three columns. A court matter shows CNR, Case number, Court, Case type, Status, Filed on, Next hearing, Disposed on and Stage. Fields the register left empty are not shown at all. |
| Coram line | Where the register names the bench, a line beneath the grid reads Before: followed by the judges. Display only. |
| Use this matter in: | Research this matter and Build a case strategy. |
| Documents | The order list, the folder picker and the import button. |
Use this matter in
These two buttons are offered the moment the record opens, before anything is imported, because researching a matter should not require importing it first.
| Button | Where it takes you | What arrives with you |
|---|---|---|
| Research this matter | Legal Research | The matter title and its fields, written into the composer as a description. |
| Build a case strategy | Case Strategy | The same description. The side you act for is left for you to pick, because Lookup cannot know it. |
Neither button starts a run. They stage the input and navigate; you press that feature's own start button and see its own cost confirmation first.
Documents
Court orders arrive in two shapes, and the badge on each row tells you which you are looking at.
| Badge | What it means | Can you import it |
|---|---|---|
| Included | The order's full text already arrived with the record. | Yes, at no further cost. |
| Needs access | The document sits behind a retrieval. | No. The checkbox is disabled. |
| Not yet published | The register lists the document but has nothing to hand over. | No. The checkbox is disabled. |
The original court PDF of an order is listed separately from its text, labelled with (original court PDF) after the order name, so you can see it exists even when it cannot be fetched.
Where a matter has more orders than the record lists, the list ends with a row saying so, for example 38 further orders are on this matter and are not listed here. It is a notice, not a document.
| Control | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Select all (12) | Right of the Documents heading | Ticks every Included document. The number is how many that is. Shown only when there is at least one. |
| Row checkbox | Left of each row | Ticks one document. Disabled on anything not importable. |
| Page count | Right of the row | The register's page count, where it gave one. |
| Save to | Below the list | Chooses the File Library folder the import lands in. Enabled once a project is selected in the top bar. Reads Default library location when nothing is chosen. |
| Import 12 | Below the list, on the right | Starts the import. Carries the count of what you ticked. Disabled with nothing selected, and reads Starting… for the moment it takes to begin. |
The line under Save to says which case you are in. With a project selected it reads Imported files land in this project. Leave as project root for the default folder. Without one it reads Select a project in the top bar to choose a folder, or import to the default location.
After the import
An Import card appears with a running tally, 3 of 12 done, and · 2 failed appended where any did. If some documents could not be imported, a warning says Some documents could not be imported. The rest are in your files.
Once it finishes, a row appears under Continue with these documents:
| Button | Where it takes you |
|---|---|
| Review these documents | Document Review, with the imported files selected. |
| Build a review matrix | Review Matrix, with the imported files selected. |
| Translate these documents | Translation, with the imported files selected. |
Timeline is deliberately not in that row. The note beneath it explains why: Hearing dates can be added to a timeline you have already built from documents. Open that timeline and use "Add date".
Court matters never show the paid retrieval panel. That belongs to the companies register alone.
Next steps
- Companies - the other search form and what a company record shows.
- Saved searches - keep a court search and re-run it later.
- File Library - where imported orders land.