What '30 Crore+ Judgments' Actually Means: the Breakdown
A judgment count is only useful if you know what is being counted. Here is how to read "30 crore+ judgments", what is a judgment, an order and a cause-list entry, and how you can check any such number yourself.
Explainer · Methodology · Last verified October 2026
When two Indian legal databases quote very different judgment counts, such as 4 crore+ for one and 30 crore+ for another, the numbers cannot be compared until you know what each one counts. This page explains what a "judgment count" can mean, why the same court file can be counted in three different ways, and the exact questions you should ask any vendor, including Claw, to make the number checkable. Last verified October 2026.
- A count needs a definition: judgments, orders and cause-list entries are three different things.
- Three details make it checkable: what is counted, which courts and years, and the date of the count.
- Claw’s figures: 30 crore+ judgments, 1.5 billion+ records, Supreme Court from 1950, High Courts from 1990, 9,102 courts, benches and forums in tracking.
- Do the spot-check yourself: pick a court and a month, state N and the test date, and compare.
01Why judgment counts are confusing
A judgment count is a headline number, and a headline number hides its definition. That is the whole problem.
The same word means different things
Ask ten people what a "judgment" is and you get ten answers. A lawyer may mean a reasoned final decision of a court. A database engineer may mean any court document stored as a record. A court website may list every order passed on every date. All three can honestly be called "judgments" in a sales page, yet they are very different quantities.
Indian courts produce far more orders than judgments
Most of what Indian courts pass each day is procedural: adjournments, notices, short interim directions. A reasoned judgment is a small part of the output of a court. So a database that counts every order and one that counts only reasoned decisions will report numbers that differ by a large factor, even if they hold exactly the same underlying material.
Coverage dates and court lists change the total
A count also depends on which courts are included and from which year. A figure for the Supreme Court from 1950 is not comparable to a figure for a few High Courts from 2010. A number with no court list and no date range is not a measurement. It is a slogan.
A judgment count means nothing until you know three things: what counts as a judgment, which courts are in, and on what date the count was taken.
02Judgment, order and cause-list entry: the three things that get counted
There are three different kinds of court record, and a clear count keeps them apart.
- Judgment: a reasoned decision that decides a case, or a key point in it, with the court’s reasons. This is what lawyers cite.
- Order: any direction of the court on a date, including a short procedural order. Some orders are reasoned and are effectively judgments. Many are not.
- Cause-list entry: a line saying a matter is listed before a bench on a date. It is a schedule, not a decision. It has no reasons in it at all.
| Record type | What it tells you | Should it be in a "judgment count"? | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoned judgment | The court’s decision and reasons | Yes | Citable authority |
| Reasoned final or interim order | A decision with reasons, short or long | Yes, if the database says so openly | Often used as precedent in practice |
| Short procedural order | Adjournment, notice, listing direction | Should be reported separately | Useful for tracking, not for citing |
| Cause-list entry | Matter listed before a bench on a date | No | Useful for hearing dates only |
| Duplicate or re-uploaded copy | The same document again | No | Inflates totals if not removed |
Courts themselves publish this material on different portals. For example, the eCourts services and the Supreme Court website publish orders and judgments in their own formats, so any aggregator has to choose how to group them. That choice is exactly what should be disclosed.
03How the number gets inflated or shrunk
Counts move for honest reasons, and sometimes for less honest ones. Here are the common causes.
Things that inflate a count
- Counting every order, including one-line adjournments, as a judgment.
- Counting cause-list entries as records of decisions.
- Counting the same judgment more than once because it appears on two court portals, or as a PDF and as text.
- Counting pages or paragraphs instead of documents.
Things that shrink a count
- Counting only reported judgments that have an editorial citation.
- Leaving out courts, tribunals or years.
- Leaving out unreported judgments that are still citable.
Neither a bigger number nor a smaller number is automatically better. A smaller, curated, reported-only set can be exactly right for a research task, and a larger set can be exactly right for finding every order in a matter. The point is to know which one you are looking at.
A note on the 4 crore+ figure
Indian Kanoon, a free and widely used public database, has advertised a figure of 4 crore+ documents on its site. That figure and a 30 crore+ figure are not in conflict by themselves, because they may be counting different things over different courts and dates. The right response is to ask each side for its definition, not to pick the bigger number.
04A method to check any judgment count
You can test any vendor’s count in under an hour with five steps. Use the same steps on every tool you compare.
- Ask for the definition. Does "judgment" mean a reasoned decision, or any order? Are cause-list entries included?
- Ask for the split by record type. A fair vendor can give a split into judgments, orders and cause-list entries.
- Ask for the split by court and year. The Supreme Court, each High Court, and any tribunals should each have a count and a start year.
- Ask for the date of the count. Counts grow every day. A number without a date cannot be checked.
- Spot-check against the court. Pick a court and a month. Count the judgments the court itself published for that month on its official portal. Then search the vendor for the same court and month. Note the sample size (N) and the date you tested, and write down both.
Always write down N and the date
A spot-check result is only meaningful with its sample size and test date. "We found most of them" is not a result. "We checked 200 judgments from one High Court for one month on a stated date and found a stated number" is.
For the official side of the spot-check, use the court’s own site, such as the Supreme Court of India website and the eCourts services portal. The National Judicial Data Grid also publishes case statistics, but those are counts of cases pending and disposed, which are again a different thing from a count of judgments. A disposed case does not always produce a reasoned judgment.
05What we publish about our own count
Claw states that its database holds 30 crore+ judgments and 1.5 billion+ records, and that it covers the Supreme Court from 1950 and High Courts from 1990, across a wider tracking universe of 9,102 courts, benches and forums. These are our figures, and as per the method above they should be read with their definitions.
- Judgments versus records: the 30 crore+ figure is for judgments. The 1.5 billion+ figure is for all records, which is a wider count and includes other kinds of court material. The two numbers should not be added together or used for each other.
- Search versus tracking: the 9,102 figure is the number of courts, benches and forums in the tracking universe. It is not the number of courts from which judgments are searchable.
- Dates: the Supreme Court is covered from 1950 and High Courts from 1990. A judgment before those years is outside our search scope.
A court-by-court breakdown of judgments, orders and cause-list entries, with the date of the count, is the document that makes the headline number checkable. We are publishing it as a dated table so that you can run the spot-check above against it.
We also state plainly what this method cannot do. It cannot tell you which tool has the best search quality or the best editorial headnotes. For reported-judgment depth, ranked research, and headnotes, see our guide to legal software in India for how the options compare on each job.
06Where 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.
The honest way to read any count is to know what is counted, which courts are in, and from when. Claw states 30 crore+ judgments, with the Supreme Court covered from 1950 and High Courts from 1990, while its tracking reaches cases, orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, with results in under 5 seconds. Search scope and tracking scope are two different things, and should be read that way. Claw does not use customer documents to train AI models.
Create a FREE Claw account to run the spot-check yourself: pick a court and a month and compare. To search the wider body of law, see case search across Indian courts.
07Sources and further reading
Primary and public sources used for the method on this page. Last verified October 2026.
- Supreme Court of India (official judgments): sci.gov.in
- eCourts services: ecourts.gov.in
- National Judicial Data Grid: njdg.ecourts.gov.in
- Indian Kanoon (public case-law database): indiankanoon.org
- Claw: clawlaw.in
Counts change daily. Confirm any figure with the publisher on the day you rely on it.
08Frequently asked questions
Is Claw’s judgment count real?
Claw states 30 crore+ judgments and 1.5 billion+ records, with the Supreme Court from 1950 and High Courts from 1990. Whether any count is "real" depends on its definition, so the way to check it is to ask for the split by record type, court and date, and to run a spot-check against the court’s own portal, noting N and the test date.
What does 30 crore judgments mean in India?
It means a database holds about 30 crore court decisions that it classes as judgments. It does not tell you how many are reasoned final decisions, how many are orders, or which courts and years are included. Ask for these details before you compare it with any other figure.
What is the difference between a judgment, an order and a cause-list entry?
A judgment is a reasoned decision. An order is any direction of the court, and many are procedural. A cause-list entry is only a listing of a matter before a bench on a date, with no decision in it. A fair count keeps all three apart.
Why do Indian legal databases quote such different counts?
They count different things over different courts and dates. One may count only reasoned judgments, and another may count all orders and records. Duplicates, coverage start years and the court list also change the total. A bigger number is not automatically better.
How can I check how many judgments a database really has?
Ask for the definition, the split by record type and court, and the count date. Then pick one court and one month, count what the court itself published, and search the database for the same court and month. Write down the sample size and the test date.
Is 9,102 the number of courts Claw searches?
No. 9,102 is the number of courts, benches and forums in Claw’s tracking universe. Judgment search covers the Supreme Court from 1950 and High Courts from 1990. These are two separate scopes and should not be mixed.