Explainer · How Monitoring Works
How Constant Monitoring Catches New Filings (New, Changed, Closed) (2026)
People often imagine monitoring as a live feed that pings the moment a case is filed. It is not. Constant monitoring catches a new filing through a plain, repeatable mechanism: it records a starting picture, re-runs the same search on a schedule, and reports what is present now that was not present last time. Understanding that mechanism tells you both why monitoring works and what it depends on to catch a filing at all. This explainer, for Indian risk, credit and legal teams, opens up how a new case actually gets caught, and the factors that decide whether and how quickly it does. Last verified October 2026.
- The mechanism: record a baseline, re-run the same search on a schedule, compare against the stored state, and report the difference.
- A new filing: is a matter present in the current scan that was absent in the last one; the comparison is what catches it.
- Not real-time: a case becomes visible on the next scheduled scan after the court portal publishes it, not the instant it is filed.
- The catch depends on: coverage, identity resolution, and whether the portal has published the filing yet.
- Detection lag: portal publishing delay plus time to the next scan; scanning more often shrinks only the second part.
01The short answer
Constant monitoring catches a new filing in three moves. First it records a baseline, the full set of matters found for a watched name at the start. Then it re-runs the same wide search on a schedule. Each time, it compares the fresh result against the stored state and reports anything that is present now but was not before as a new matter. That is the whole mechanism: store, re-search, compare.
Everything else, the daily or weekly cadence, the New, Changed and Closed buckets, the alerts, is built on top of that comparison. For how the resulting report is read, see reading a New, Changed, Closed monitoring report.
02Step 1: the baseline
Detection is a comparison, and a comparison needs something to compare against. The baseline is that reference point: a one-time wide search that records every matter on the watched name as it stands at the start, stored as the known state.
The baseline is why a new filing can be told apart from an old one. Without it, the first scan has nothing to compare against, so every existing case would look new. The quality of the baseline also sets the quality of everything after: if a name was resolved poorly at the baseline stage, the comparison inherits that weakness on every later scan.
03Step 2: the scheduled re-scan
Monitoring does not watch the courts continuously. It re-runs the same search at a set interval, daily, weekly or monthly, and each run produces a fresh snapshot of what is on record for the watched names at that moment.
This is the part people misread. A new case does not trigger an instant alert the second it is filed. It becomes visible to monitoring on the next scheduled scan after the court portal has published it. The cadence is a dial: scan more often and you catch filings sooner, at more cost and noise; scan less often and you catch them later. Matching the cadence to the exposure is the practical trade-off.
04Step 3: the comparison
The catch happens in the comparison. The tool lines up the fresh scan against the stored state and classifies the difference:
| Finding | How it is detected |
|---|---|
| New filing | A matter present in this scan that was absent in the stored state |
| Changed matter | A matter present in both, but with a new order, date or stage |
| Closed matter | A matter that was in the stored state and is now disposed |
Only the difference is reported, and the fresh scan then becomes the new stored state for the next comparison. This is why a good monitoring report shows you a short list of movement rather than the whole case history every cycle. A new filing is, precisely, a matter that appears in the current scan and was not in the last one.
05What the catch depends on
The mechanism only catches a filing if the filing is reachable. Three things decide that:
- Coverage. The scan can only catch a case in a forum it actually searches. A filing in a court outside the coverage is invisible to the comparison.
- Identity resolution. The scan searches names. If a case is filed under a former name, a misspelling or a group entity that is not on the watched list, the comparison will not see it as the watched party's matter.
- Portal publishing. A filing becomes findable only once the court portal publishes it. If the portal lags, the scan cannot catch what is not yet on record, however often it runs.
These are the honest limits of the mechanism, and they are why a clean scan means "nothing found in what was searched", not "nothing was filed".
06How fast it catches a filing
The time between a case being filed and monitoring catching it is the sum of two delays: how long the court portal takes to publish the filing, and how long until the next scheduled scan. You can shorten the second delay by scanning more often; you cannot shorten the first, because it belongs to the court system.
Detection lag is the portal publishing delay plus the time to the next scan. You can shrink the second by scanning more often; the first belongs to the courts.
This is why monitoring is an early-warning layer, not a real-time alarm. It catches a new filing reliably and far sooner than a human re-checking by hand, but on the rhythm of scheduled scans and the courts' own publishing, not the instant of filing. For how to choose the right rhythm, see how to build a litigation monitoring process, and for the wider choice of monitoring over a single check, see monitoring versus a one-time search.
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.
ClawScore, at clawscore.clawlaw.in, is Claw's litigation and criminal-risk intelligence service, and its Constant Monitoring runs exactly this mechanism. The first pass is your baseline: ClawScore searches a watched name across 9,102 courts, benches and forums and records every matter in a scored Excel workbook, with a Summary risk band (Clean, Low, Moderate or High), a Matters sheet, a Related parties sheet covering directors and guarantors, and a Coverage sheet showing what was searched. From then on, it re-scans the watched list on a daily, weekly or monthly cadence, compares each scan against the stored state, and reports only what is New, Changed or Closed. Because the Related parties sheet pulls in directors, guarantors and group entities, the identity resolution that the catch depends on is wider than a single name. Every finding carries a match confidence, results return in under 5 seconds, judgment search spans 30 crore+ judgments with Supreme Court decisions from 1950 and High Court decisions from 1990, and Claw does not use your watched list or documents to train its AI models. Constant Monitoring is priced at Rs 300, Rs 600 or Rs 3,000 per entity per month by cadence and depth, with one-time searches from Rs 500. A clean scan means nothing was found in the forums covered on the scan date under the names resolved, and the output is a risk input, not a regulated credit score and not legal advice.
To record a baseline you can monitor against, run a case search across Indian courts by party name across every forum at once.
08Sources and further reading
- eCourts (court case status): ecourts.gov.in
- National Judicial Data Grid (official pendency data): njdg.ecourts.gov.in
- Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (insolvency records): ibbi.gov.in
- Claw: clawlaw.in
This explainer is general information, not legal advice. Confirm any matter that affects a decision against the official court record before you act.
09Frequently asked questions
How does monitoring catch a new court case?
By comparison. It records a baseline of the matters on a name, re-runs the same search on a schedule, and compares each fresh scan against the stored state. Anything present now that was not present before is reported as a new filing. The fresh scan then becomes the stored state for the next comparison.
Does monitoring alert me the moment a case is filed?
No. Monitoring is not a live feed. A new case becomes visible on the next scheduled scan after the court portal has published it. The cadence, daily, weekly or monthly, sets how soon you see it. Monitoring is an early-warning layer, not a real-time alarm.
Why do I need a baseline for monitoring to catch new filings?
Because detection is a comparison and a comparison needs a reference point. The baseline records the existing matters at the start, so a later scan can tell a genuinely new filing from a pre-existing case. Without it, the first scan would flag every old case as new.
What stops monitoring from catching a filing?
Three things: the case sits in a forum the scan does not cover; it was filed under a name, spelling or group entity not on the watched list, so identity resolution misses it; or the court portal has not published it yet. A clean scan means nothing was found in what was searched, not that nothing was filed.
How quickly will monitoring catch a new filing?
The lag is the time the court portal takes to publish the filing plus the time until the next scheduled scan. Scanning more often shrinks the second delay but not the first, which belongs to the court system. More frequent scans catch filings sooner, at more cost and more routine noise.