In news– Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud has recently announced that the Supreme Court will adopt a “neutral citation system” for its judgments.
What is a “citation” and a neutral citation?
- A case citation is essentially an identification tag for a judgement. Typically, it would contain a reference number, the year of the judgement, the name of the court that delivered that judgement, and a shorthand for the journal publishing the judgement.
- A neutral citation would mean that the court would assign its own citation — distinct from those given by traditional Law Reporters.
- Law Reporters are periodicals or annual digests that publish judgments, often with an editorial note to make it accessible for lawyers to refer to precedents.
- For example, for the landmark Kesavananda Bharati case, the citation in ‘Supreme Court Cases’, a journal published by the Eastern Book Company, is (1973) 4 SCC 225. In the All India Reporter (AIR), the citation is AIR 1973 SC 1461.
- Judgments mention citations while referring to precedents and often use citations from different Law Reporters. With artificial intelligence (AI) enabled translation of judgments and transcribing of court proceedings, a uniform citation is necessary.
- Several High Courts including Delhi High Court have started a neutral citation format.
Further reading: https://journalsofindia.com/the-supreme-court-of-india-transcribes-its-proceedings-live-using-ai/
Source: The Indian Express
