HOW TO READ A LEGAL CITATION?

INTRODUCTION

What if you are given a past court case decision to find? You begin to search by the name of the party and perhaps end up not getting this task done because we know there are already a million of decided cases and it is also possible that there would be hundreds of decided cases on the same name of the party. What are you going to do in this scenario? Well, referring to the citation of such a case would make your finding easier.

What do you mean by the citation of a case?

Citation of a case refers to a particular case, the same way a title and author refers to a book. It is a way of finding past court case decisions by the legal profession.

There are some essential elements which are required to give accurate information regarding its publication to the readers. The following are the elements:

1. Party names: the names of the parties are mentioned at first in italics. There are two names given for a case. The first name denotes to be the party who is bringing the action and the second name is of the party against whom such action is being bought. In case there is more than one party on either side, the name which was listed first is mentioned, and the use of “& Ors indicates the rest of the name of the parties”. Furthermore, the ‘v’ or ‘vs’ written in between the names of the parties mean versus.
2. Year: year here meant to be the year in which the court delivers the decision. It is always enclosed in brackets.
3. Volume number: volume number always precedes the abbreviated reporter title. It meant to identify the volume where the case is located.
4. Name of the reporter: there are various reporters, and their names are mentioned in a standard abbreviated form. Some of them are as follows.

• AIR: All India Reporter (e.g. C. Mehta v. Union of India 1987 SCR (1) 819, AIR 1987 965)
• SCC: Supreme Court Cases (e.g. Maruti Suzuki Ltd v. CCE (2009) 9 SCC 193)
• SCR: Supreme Court Reports (e.g. Twyford Tea Co. Ltd. And Another vs The State of Kerala And Another 1970 AIR 1133, 1970 SCR (3) 383)
• SCJ: Supreme Court Journal (e.g. M. Yogendra v. Leelamma N. 2009 (7) SCJ 2)
• DLT: Delhi Law Times (e.g. Satyapal v/s Slick Auto Accessories Pvt. Ltd. & Ors 177 (2011) DLT 789)
• Cri.L.J: Criminal Law Journal (e.g. M/S Hdfc Bank Ltd vs M. Rameshan 2009 Cri. L.J 1703)

5. Page Number: the page from which the cited case begins is also mentioned in the citation.

For better understanding, let us interpret the following case citation: M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath & Ors (1997) 1 SCC 388.

Here, Name of the Case is M.C. Mehta versus Kamal Nath, and the decision was pronounced in 1997. It was published by the reporter abbreviated as SCC in its 1st volume, and the case begins from page 388.

CONCLUSION

Citation is a system which is being used by legal professionals to find past court decisions. The format of citation reported in India is the same. However, foreign and international citations may vary from Indian citations.