Neutral Citation System

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) has announced that the Supreme Court will adopt a “neutral citation system” for its judgments.

What is a “citation”?

• A case citation is essentially an identification tag for a judgment. Typically, it would contain a reference number, the year of the decision, the name of the court that delivered that judgment, and shorthand for the journal publishing the judgment.

What is a neutral citation?

• A neutral citation is a form of citation where courts assign a unique sequential number to each decision.
  • This 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.

Why is a neutral system excellent or necessary?

• Judgments mention citations while referring to precedents and often use citations from different Law Reporters.
• With artificial intelligence (AI) enabling the 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.

Significance:

• The objective is to enable people to identify cases and text in them by reference to a single, unvarying reference, no matter the medium of publication.