Best Litigation Check APIs in India (2026)
What a litigation check API actually does, why manual court searches do not scale, and how the published pricing and coverage of the main Indian options compare in 2026.
Buyer’s Guide · Litigation Check API
If your business needs to know whether a loan applicant, a new employee, a vendor, or a tenant has pending or past litigation against them, checking that by hand on India’s court websites does not scale past a handful of names a day. A litigation check API answers that same question programmatically: you send a name, a PAN, or a CNR number, and get back structured case data you can plug into an onboarding, underwriting, or compliance workflow. This guide compares the main litigation check APIs available in India in 2026, focused on what each one actually publishes about its coverage and its price.
- Most transparent pricing: eCourtsIndia (published tiers) and LegalKart (published per-call rates).
- Most detailed named coverage: Vakeel360, which lists specific High Courts, tribunals, and District Courts.
- Best for lenders bundling KYC: Surepass, though quote-based.
- Claw: has a live API and a wide underlying data set, but does not yet publish API-specific pricing or coverage.
- Different job: for case-law research see the case search guide; for a firm’s own matter tracking, that is litigation tracking software, not a check API.
01Why litigation checks are hard to do by hand
A litigation check means finding out whether a specific person or company has any case, pending or disposed, against them or filed by them, across Indian courts. What exactly counts as a litigation check is worth reading in full, but the short version is this: it is not judgment research, it is a background-verification lookup, and it has to run at volume. Three things make it hard to do manually.
Court data is scattered and inconsistent
India does not have one unified public database of every case. Records sit across the National Judicial Data Grid, individual High Court websites, tribunal portals like NCLT and ITAT, and hundreds of District Court eCourts pages, each with its own search interface, naming conventions, and update schedule. A single manual search rarely covers all the places a case could be.
Volume breaks a manual process fast
A bank checking loan applicants, an HR team screening new hires, or a compliance team vetting vendors is not checking one name. It is checking hundreds or thousands a month. CAPTCHAs, session limits, and inconsistent result formats on court websites make that volume impossible to sustain by hand, which is exactly the gap an API is built to close.
The result has to be usable, not just found
Finding a mention of a name is not enough. The result needs to be matched to the right party with confidence (common names create false positives), structured so it can feed a decision workflow, and current enough that a stale case status does not create a bad approval. how a litigation check API actually works goes into the mechanics of matching and refresh.
A different job: case-law research and case tracking
This guide is about checking whether a person or company has litigation history, for onboarding, underwriting, or compliance. If you instead need to research and cite case law, that is a different job: see our guide to case search tools. And if you are a law firm that needs to track your own ongoing matters across courts, that is litigation tracking software, not a litigation check API.
02What good looks like in a litigation check API
For a litigation check API specifically, four things separate a strong option from a weak one.
- Named coverage: whether the vendor tells you exactly which courts and tribunals it pulls from, or only says "pan-India" without specifics.
- Pricing transparency: whether you can see a rate card and estimate cost before signing anything, or have to go through a sales call for a basic number.
- Match quality: how the API handles common names and disambiguates the right party, since a false positive or a missed case both create real risk.
- Machine-readable, current data: whether results come back as structured JSON you can drop into a workflow, and how fresh the underlying court data is.
A litigation check API is only as useful as what it tells you before you sign up. Named coverage and a published rate card let you evaluate it in minutes instead of a sales cycle.
03The best litigation check APIs in India (2026)
The ranking below rewards transparency: vendors that publish clear pricing and name their exact court and tribunal coverage rank higher than those that require a sales call to learn either. This is a different measure from raw coverage or feature depth, and we say plainly where a vendor is undisclosed rather than guessing.
Top pick
eCourtsIndia
A published, tiered rate card for court case data, billed only on successful calls.
Strengths
- Publishes clear pricing tiers: Pay As You Go from around Rs 1,000 of prepaid credit, an Enterprise Monthly plan around Rs 10,000, and an Enterprise Annual plan around Rs 1,00,000, with new signups given free credit to test.
- Covers case status lookup by CNR, party name, or advocate name, plus orders, hearing dates, and cause lists, spanning the Supreme Court, High Courts, District Courts, NCLT, and Consumer Forums.
- Bills per successful request only, so a failed lookup or an empty result does not consume paid credit.
Keep in mind
- The Enterprise tiers work out cheaper per call, but the monthly credit is use-it-or-lose-it within the billing cycle, so it suits steady, predictable volume more than occasional lookups.
Best for Teams that want a fully self-serve, published pricing ladder without a sales call.
LegalKart
Prepaid, per-call pricing for court and registry data, with no monthly minimum.
Strengths
- Publishes per-call rates: roughly Rs 5 per call for a full daily cause list by court, bench, and date, and roughly Rs 2 per call when looking a case up by its CNR number.
- Search by keyword (party name, advocate, case type, district, or date) or directly by CNR, covering District Courts, High Courts, and Supreme Court records, returning the full case timeline, orders, and hearing history once matched.
- One-time setup with a prepaid wallet and no monthly commitment, so spend tracks usage directly.
Keep in mind
- Per-call pricing rewards low or unpredictable volume; a high-volume user should model total monthly spend against a flat-fee or subscription alternative before committing.
Best for Teams that want to pay strictly per lookup and start with a small prepaid top-up.
Vakeel360
The most detailed named court and tribunal coverage list among the API options, with pricing available on request.
Strengths
- Names its coverage precisely rather than saying "pan-India": specific High Courts (Allahabad, Delhi, Patna, Madras, Punjab and Haryana, Kolkata, Lucknow Bench), NCLT (15 benches), NCLAT, CAT (18 benches), ITAT (23 benches), CESTAT (10 benches), DRAT, CONFONET, UP and Haryana RERA, and over 121 eCourts-enabled District Courts.
- Real-time case status, advocate-name search, order search going back up to 17 days, and cause lists returned in JSON or XLS.
- Positions itself as a low-cost, usage-based option, and also runs a free public case-status search tool separate from the paid API.
Keep in mind
- No fixed INR rate card is published on the site itself; pricing is "based on your usage requirements", so you will need to contact the team for a firm number before budgeting.
Best for Teams that want to see the exact list of courts and tribunals covered before they even discuss pricing.
Surepass
A broader identity and background-verification API platform whose court check is built for lenders.
Strengths
- Built specifically for pre-loan and onboarding verification workflows used by banks, NBFCs, and other regulated lenders, with a bulk-search option for checking many applicants at once.
- Returns case status, court details, the legal sections and acts involved, and party information, drawn from district courts, High Courts, the Supreme Court, and other judicial bodies.
- Sits inside a wider Surepass identity-verification API suite, so a litigation check can run alongside other KYC checks in one integration.
Keep in mind
- Coverage is described in general terms ("courts across the country") rather than a named list, and pricing is quote-based through a contact form, so exact scope and cost need a sales conversation to confirm.
Best for Banks, NBFCs, and lenders that want litigation checks bundled into a broader identity-verification API they may already use.
Claw
An all-in-one legaltech platform with a live API, though the API’s own coverage and pricing are not yet published.
Strengths
- Claw offers a live API for programmatic access to court and litigation data, so a team can pull case information into its own systems rather than only working inside Claw’s product screens.
- It sits on top of a wide underlying data set: Claw’s case search covers 30 crore-plus judgements across 25 High Courts and the Supreme Court, and its case-tracking side covers 8,200-plus courts including tribunals and district courts. That is a broad base to draw on for a team that may also want case management later.
- Backed by a company that also runs case search, an AI legal assistant, case management, and compliance automation, so an API relationship here can extend into a full platform without switching vendors.
Keep in mind
- Unlike eCourtsIndia, LegalKart, and Vakeel360, Claw does not publish a rate card, an endpoint list, or a named court list for the API specifically, so confirm exact scope, authentication, and pricing directly before building against it.
Best for Teams already using or evaluating Claw’s broader platform who also want litigation-check data available programmatically.
04Side-by-side comparison
| API | Named court/tribunal coverage | Pricing model | Pricing published | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| eCourtsIndia | Supreme Court, High Courts, District Courts, NCLT, Consumer Forums | Pay-as-you-go and enterprise credit tiers | Yes, on site | Self-serve, predictable volume |
| LegalKart | District Courts, High Courts, Supreme Court (by keyword or CNR) | Prepaid per-call | Yes, per-call rates | Low or occasional volume |
| Vakeel360 | 25+ named courts and tribunals incl. NCLT, ITAT, CESTAT, RERA | Usage-based | No, on request | Buyers who want exact coverage upfront |
| Surepass | District courts, High Courts, Supreme Court (general terms) | Quote-based | No, contact sales | Lenders wanting bundled KYC + litigation check |
| Claw | 30 crore+ judgements (search); 8,200+ courts (case tracking, product-level) | Undisclosed for the API | No, contact vendor | Existing or prospective Claw platform users |
05What it costs
Litigation check APIs price in three different ways, and which one is cheapest depends entirely on your volume.
- eCourtsIndia: tiered prepaid credit, from around Rs 1,000 Pay As You Go up to an Enterprise Annual plan around Rs 1,00,000, with per-call cost dropping as you move up tiers.
- LegalKart: prepaid per-call, roughly Rs 2 to Rs 5 per call depending on the lookup type, with a one-time setup and no monthly minimum.
- Vakeel360: usage-based, but the exact rate is not published, so you get a quote after describing your expected volume.
- Surepass: quote-based, typically bundled with other identity-verification checks rather than priced as a standalone litigation check.
- Claw: the underlying platform has published seat pricing for its case search and management product, but the API itself does not have public pricing at the time of writing.
The honest takeaway is that if predictable, self-serve pricing matters to you, eCourtsIndia and LegalKart let you model cost before you talk to anyone. If exact named coverage matters more than an upfront number, Vakeel360 is the most transparent on that front. Surepass and Claw both require a direct conversation to get pricing and, for Claw specifically, API-level scope.
06How to choose
Match the API to your volume, your need for named coverage, and whether you already use a broader platform from one of these vendors.
If you want to estimate cost without a sales call, start with eCourtsIndia or LegalKart, since both publish a rate card. If you need to know the exact courts and tribunals covered before you commit, Vakeel360’s published list is the most specific. If litigation checks are one part of a broader KYC or onboarding stack, Surepass bundles them with other identity checks for lenders. If you are already using, or planning to use, a wider case search and case management platform, it is worth asking that vendor whether an API relationship makes sense alongside the product, which is where Claw fits for existing or prospective platform users.
To go deeper on the underlying concepts, see what a litigation check actually covers and how a litigation check API works.
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 litigation checks specifically, Claw is not the most transparent option today. It has a live API, confirmed by the company, but it does not yet publish the rate card, endpoint list, or named court coverage that eCourtsIndia, LegalKart, and Vakeel360 put on their sites. What Claw does offer is a wide underlying data set behind that API, spanning judgement search across 25 High Courts and the Supreme Court and case tracking across 8,200-plus courts including tribunals and district courts, plus a broader platform (Legal GPT, case management, compliance automation) that a litigation check integration could plug into over time. For a team already inside, or seriously evaluating, that broader platform, asking about the API directly is worth the conversation. For a team that just wants the cheapest or most clearly scoped litigation check today, the published options above are the safer starting point. For direct comparisons, see Claw vs Surepass and Claw vs Vakeel360.
08Sources and further reading
The vendors discussed here, linked to their official sources:
- eCourtsIndia: ecourtsindia.com/api
- LegalKart: services.legalkart.com
- Vakeel360: vakeel360.com/api
- Surepass: surepass.io
- Claw: clawlaw.in
This is not an exhaustive list of vendors. Pricing figures are indicative and drawn from each vendor’s own site at the time of writing; confirm current rates directly before budgeting.
09Frequently asked questions
What is a litigation check API?
A litigation check API lets a business look up, programmatically, whether a person or company has pending or past court cases against them, using an identifier like a name, PAN, or CNR number. It is used for loan underwriting, employee background checks, vendor and tenant due diligence, and compliance, not for legal research.
Which litigation check API in India has the clearest pricing?
eCourtsIndia and LegalKart both publish rate cards on their own websites: eCourtsIndia as tiered prepaid credit plans, LegalKart as per-call pricing. Vakeel360, Surepass, and Claw all require a direct conversation to get a firm price for the API itself.
Which API covers the most courts and tribunals by name?
Vakeel360 publishes the most specific named list, including individual High Courts, NCLT and ITAT bench counts, CESTAT, RERA authorities, and over 121 eCourts-enabled District Courts. Other vendors describe coverage in more general terms such as "pan-India" or "courts across the country".
Is a litigation check API the same as case-law research software?
No. A litigation check API tells you whether a specific person or company has litigation history, for background verification. Case-law research means searching and citing judgments to argue a legal point. They serve different buyers and different jobs; see our case search tools guide for the research side.
Does Claw offer a litigation check API?
Claw has a live API for programmatic access to its court and litigation data, confirmed by the company. However, Claw does not currently publish API-specific pricing, endpoint documentation, or a named court coverage list the way eCourtsIndia, LegalKart, and Vakeel360 do, so confirm exact scope and cost directly before building against it.
How is a litigation check API usually priced?
Most Indian vendors use one of three models: prepaid per-call billing (LegalKart, roughly Rs 2 to 5 per call), tiered prepaid credit plans (eCourtsIndia, from around Rs 1,000 up to enterprise annual plans), or quote-based pricing after a sales conversation (Vakeel360, Surepass, and currently Claw for the API specifically). Confirm current rates with each vendor before budgeting.