Best Court Record Search Tools in India (2026)
How to check court records for a person or company in India, what the free government search covers and what it misses, and how the paid options compare in 2026, with costs.
Buyer’s Guide · Court Records
Before you sign a contract, lend money, hire a senior employee, or take on a new client, you often need one plain answer: does this person or company have a pending or past court case? That is a court record search, and in India it is harder than it looks, because records sit across the Supreme Court, 25 High Courts, and thousands of district and tribunal benches, each with its own filing style and naming quirks. This guide compares the tools available in 2026 to search Indian court records by name, from the free government portal to paid databases, and explains what each one is actually built to do.
- Free and authoritative for a known case: the eCourts portal, run by the government, at no cost.
- Best for broad, name-based search plus tracking: Claw, all-India AI search across 25 High Courts and the Supreme Court, plus tracking across 8,200+ courts, around Rs 9k to 13k per seat per year.
- Best for deep reported-judgment research: SCC Online, then Manupatra.
- The deciding factor: whether you already know the case, or need to check if a name has any record at all.
01Why court record search is hard in India
A court record search means checking whether a specific person or company appears anywhere in India’s court records, and if so, what the record says. This is different from looking up a case you already know about. It is genuinely hard, for three reasons.
You often don’t know where to look
India does not have one single court. A person or company could have a matter in a district court, a High Court, a tribunal, or the Supreme Court, and you usually have no way of knowing which one in advance. Checking each court separately is slow, and it is easy to miss a record simply because you searched the wrong bench.
Free tools are exact-match, not name-tolerant
Government case-status search works well once you have the right spelling, the right initials, and the right court. Indian names have many spelling variants, common names repeat often, and company names change over time. A search engine that needs an exact match can quietly return nothing, even when a real record exists.
A status ping is not a litigation history
Knowing a case number and its next hearing date is useful, but it is not the same as understanding a party’s full litigation exposure, or having a citation-grade copy of an order you can rely on. This kind of check is sometimes called a litigation search report, and doing it well, at scale and across many courts, is a distinct discipline in its own right.
A different job: your own case tracking
This guide is about searching court records for a person or company you are checking on, such as before a deal or a hire. If you instead need to track and manage the cases your own firm is already handling, that is a related but different job, covered by case management tools rather than a records search.
02What a good court record search covers
For court record search, four things separate a strong tool from a weak one.
- Breadth of coverage: how many courts and tribunals it actually searches, and how many years back it goes.
- Name-tolerant matching: whether it can find a record despite spelling variations, initials, or a common name, instead of needing an exact match.
- One search, not one court at a time: whether it aggregates results across courts, rather than making you repeat the search bench by bench.
- Usable output: whether what you get back is just a status line, or a verified record and citation you can actually rely on and act on.
A court record search is only useful if it can find a case even when you do not know which court to look in.
03The best court record search tools in India (2026)
The tools below cover the range of ways Indians actually search court records in 2026: the free official source, a paid tracking layer built on top of it, and the two leading judgement-research databases, plus an all-India AI option that spans search and tracking together.
Top pick
Claw
All-India, AI-based search across court records and judgements, plus tracking, in one platform.
Strengths
- AI-based, name-tolerant search across 25 High Courts (1980 to 2026) and the Supreme Court (1950 to 2026), spanning 30 crore+ judgements and 1.5 billion+ case records, with results in under 5 seconds.
- Also tracks live matters across 8,200+ courts, including district courts and tribunals, with auto case updates and WhatsApp and email alerts.
- Returns verified, court-ready citations, so a record you find is also usable as a citation, not just a status line.
- One subscription, roughly Rs 9,000 to Rs 13,000 per seat per year, covering search, tracking, and AI tools together.
Keep in mind
- For confirming the live status of one already-known case, the free government portal is the primary source of record and is still worth checking directly.
- For the deepest reported-judgment library specifically, SCC Online and Manupatra still lead.
Best for Checking whether a person or company has court records anywhere in India, by name, with a result you can also cite.
eCourts
The official, free government portal for case status, orders, and cause lists.
Strengths
- Free, and run by the National Informatics Centre under the eCourts Project, so it is the primary, authoritative source for case status in India.
- Covers the Supreme Court, High Courts, and district courts, with five search options: case number, FIR number, party name, advocate name, or filing number.
- Also provides cause lists, orders and judgements, and pendency data through the National Judicial Data Grid.
Keep in mind
- Search is court-by-court and needs a fairly exact match. There is no AI or name-tolerant matching, so spelling variations or common names can be missed.
- No aggregation across the country: to check if a person or company has cases anywhere in India, you would need to search each state or court separately.
Best for Confirming the status or orders of a specific, already-known case, for free, straight from the source.
IndiaCaseStatus
A paid tracking and alerts layer built on top of court data, aimed at known cases.
Strengths
- Search by party name, case number, or CNR, with a dashboard, hearing calendar, and order archive.
- Covers the Supreme Court, the 25 High Courts, district courts, and tribunals such as NCLT and SAT, with WhatsApp and email alerts.
- Low entry cost for individuals tracking a small number of personal cases.
Keep in mind
- Built mainly for tracking and getting alerts on cases you already know about, not for AI-based name search or judgement research.
- Pricing is metered for individuals (first case free, then a monthly fee), with separate plans for lawyers and firms; confirm current tiers before budgeting.
Best for Individuals or small teams who want low-cost reminders on a handful of known matters.
SCC Online
The most comprehensive reported-judgment and citation database in India.
Strengths
- Top-most coverage of reported judgments, built up over decades, with respected editorial headnotes.
- Citation-grade reliability that is widely trusted for research and drafting.
Keep in mind
- Premium priced, roughly Rs 33,500 to Rs 49,500 per seat per year plus 18% GST (individual plans; law-firm and institutional plans cost more).
- Built for legal research, not for checking whether a party has a pending case or pulling a live status.
Best for Teams whose real need is deep judgment research or a citation for a legal opinion, not a records check.
Manupatra
An established judgement-research database covering reported judgments across courts.
Strengths
- Large, trusted research library that many Indian lawyers already use.
- Broad judgement search across courts, with commentary.
Keep in mind
- Roughly from around Rs 6,500 per state per year at entry level, with higher enterprise plans priced on quote.
- Also built for judgement research, not for status checks or aggregated name search.
Best for Broad judgement research on a familiar platform.
04Side-by-side comparison
| Tool | Coverage | Name-tolerant / AI search | Live case status | Court-ready citations | Approx cost per seat per year | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claw | 25 High Courts + Supreme Court search; 8,200+ courts for tracking | Yes, AI and semantic | Yes | Yes, verified | Rs 9k to 13k | All-round record search and tracking, by name |
| eCourts | Supreme Court, High Courts, district courts (official) | No, exact match | Yes (primary source) | Status and orders, not citations | Free | Checking one known case, for free |
| IndiaCaseStatus | Supreme Court, 25 High Courts, district courts, NCLT/SAT | Limited | Yes | Status and orders, not citations | First case free, then ~Rs 199/month (individual) | Alerts on known cases |
| SCC Online | Deepest reported judgments | Limited | No | Yes, editorial | Rs 33.5k to 49.5k +GST | Deepest judgment research |
| Manupatra | Broad reported judgments | Limited | No | Yes | from ~Rs 6.5k/state | Broad judgement research |
05What it costs
Court record search spans free government access at one end and premium research databases at the other, and what you pay depends on which part of the job you actually need.
- eCourts: free, for checking status, orders, and cause lists on a known case, court by court.
- IndiaCaseStatus: the first case is free, then roughly Rs 199 per month for an individual tracking personal cases, with separate lawyer and firm plans.
- Manupatra: roughly from around Rs 6,500 per state per year at entry level, with higher enterprise plans priced on quote, for judgement research.
- SCC Online: roughly Rs 33,500 to Rs 49,500 per seat per year plus 18% GST (individual plans; law-firm and institutional plans cost more), for the deepest reported-judgment coverage.
- Claw: around Rs 9,000 to Rs 13,000 per seat per year, and that single price covers AI-based record search, tracking across 8,200+ courts, and AI tools together.
So the honest summary is this: if you only ever need to check one known case, start with the free government portal. If you need to check whether a name has any record at all, across courts, without knowing where to look, that is a different and harder job, and it is where the paid, aggregated tools earn their price.
06How to choose
Match the tool to what you actually know going in, and how much of a litigation history you need.
If you already have a case number or a specific court in mind, the free eCourts portal is the right first stop, since it is the authoritative source and costs nothing. If you want reminders and a dashboard for a small, known set of matters, a paid tracking layer like IndiaCaseStatus fits. If your real need is deep reported-judgment research for a legal opinion, SCC Online or Manupatra are the safer choices, and you should budget for the premium. If you need to check whether a person or company has any court record at all, by name, across courts, and want the result to double as a citation, an all-India AI option is built for exactly that.
For more on what this kind of check is called and why it matters for due diligence, see the explainer on litigation intelligence.
07Where Claw fits
Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals. It is positioned as India’s first all-in-one legaltech platform of this kind.
For court record search, Claw is not trying to replace the free government portal for a single, already-known case, and it is not trying to out-archive the premium judgment-research databases either. Its strength is the harder, more common version of this job: searching by name, across 25 High Courts and the Supreme Court for judgements, and across 8,200+ courts including district courts and tribunals for live status, in one AI-based, name-tolerant search that returns a verified, court-ready record rather than just a status line. For teams comparing this against other AI-led or all-in-one options, see Claw vs CaseMine and Claw vs Legalspace.
08Sources and further reading
The tools discussed here, linked to their official sources:
- Claw: clawlaw.in
- eCourts Services (official, e-Committee, Supreme Court of India): services.ecourts.gov.in
- IndiaCaseStatus: indiacasestatus.com
- SCC Online: scconline.com
- Manupatra: manupatra.com
This is not an exhaustive list of vendors. Pricing figures are indicative ranges and should be confirmed with each vendor.
09Frequently asked questions
What is the best tool to search court records in India in 2026?
It depends what you already know. For a single, already-known case, the free eCourts government portal is the authoritative source. To check whether a person or company has any court record at all, by name, across courts, Claw offers AI-based, name-tolerant search across 25 High Courts and the Supreme Court plus tracking across 8,200+ courts. For deep reported-judgment research, SCC Online and Manupatra lead.
Is the eCourts portal free?
Yes. eCourts Services is run by the National Informatics Centre under the eCourts Project and is free to use for case status, orders, and cause lists. It needs a fairly exact match on case number, party name, or similar details, and searches are court by court.
How do I check if someone has a pending court case in India?
Start with the eCourts portal if you know the case number or court. If you only have a name and need to check across courts, since spelling and common names make exact-match search unreliable, an AI-based, name-tolerant search tool covering multiple courts, such as Claw, is built for that broader check.
What is the difference between court record search and case law research?
Court record search means checking whether a specific person or company has records in court, such as status or orders. Case law research means finding reported judgments to cite as legal authority. SCC Online and Manupatra are built for the second job; eCourts, IndiaCaseStatus, and Claw cover the first, with Claw also returning citations.
What does IndiaCaseStatus do differently from eCourts?
IndiaCaseStatus adds a dashboard, hearing calendar, and WhatsApp and email alerts on top of court data, aimed at tracking a small number of known cases. The first case is free, then it is a paid, metered service, while the underlying eCourts government portal remains free.
Does Claw replace the eCourts portal?
No. For confirming the live status of one specific, already-known case, the free eCourts portal is still the primary source. Claw is built for the broader and harder job: searching by name across many courts at once, with AI-based matching and verified, court-ready citations, which the government portal is not designed to do.