Are you new to the field of law?
If you are a law student, learning how to understand and interpret legal case citations is perhaps one of the first basic skills that you will have to develop in your first semester.
Is this sounding complicated? It is not.
In this article, Team YLCC gives you an overview on legal citations and how they can help you in your academic and co-curricular. Read on!
What Is A Legal Citation?
A citation is a path address of a book, article, web page or other published item, with sufficient details to uniquely identify the item. Citations are provided in scholarly works, bibliographies and indices referring the past work in the same subject area. Citations are used in scholarly works give information about a publication (book, journal article, video, etc.) that enables readers to identify and locate the referred publication.
A legal case citation pertains to a citation which helps in identifying the source of information pertaining to a particular legal case.
Structure Of A Legal Case Citation
- Party names – the names of the parties to a case are generally written in italics. The ‘v’ between party names is in roman type and lower case, however for the sake of typing convenience, an italicised ‘v’ is often considered appropriate. If there are multiple parties on either side, only mention the first one. The use of ‘& Ors,’ which means ‘and others,’ may suggest the omission.
- The year is listed after the party names. It’s surrounded by round or square brackets.
- Volume number – If the report series title includes a volume number, it must be given immediately after the year.
- Abbreviated name of the report series – most law report series have a standard abbreviation. This criterion is frequently stated at the start of each volume in the series.
- Page number – indicate the page number in the series of papers listed where the case starts.
Sample Citation: Maruti Suzuki Ltd v. CCE (2009) 9 SCC 193
Here, ‘Maruti Suzuki Ltd. V. CCE’ is the Party Name, ‘(2009)’ is the year, ‘9’ is the volume number, ‘SCC’ is the abbreviation of the Law Reporter, ‘193’ is the page number on which the case exists in the 9th volume of the SCC 2009 booklet.
Common Legal Reporters In India
For legal citations to be valid, their sources must be valid. The Supreme Court of India allows only select sources in courts of law in India. Needless to say, invalid sources are barred from citation in all courts of the land. In the following paragraphs, some of the few sources that constitute a valid legal case citation.
- ALL INDIA REPORTER (AIR)
AIR is published from 1914 onwards. It is a publication of AIR Ltd Nagpur. It is a monthly Journal. AIR monthly issues are numbered consecutively and loose parts are bound after completion of year with annual Index. There are 10 volumes each year covering Supreme Court and Various High Court Cases. The volumes are bound States wise and Supreme Court wise. But all volumes have the same volume number for each year i.e. Jan-Dec2009 Vol. 96.
Sample Citation: Balbir Kaur v. State of Punjab AIR 2009 SC 3036
- SUPREME COURT CASES (SCC)
Supreme Court Cases shortly famous as SCC, is a fortnight publication of Eastern Book Company, Lucknow publishing since 1969. There are eight volumes with usually four or five supplements in a year bearing the numbers 1 to 12 or 13 i.e. volumes of a year like 2004 bear the numbers 1 to 13 including supplements and volumes of 2005 also bear numbers 1 to 13 including supplements.
Sample Citation: Maruti Suzuki Ltd v. CCE (2009) 9 SCC 193
- SUPREME COURT REPORTS (SCR)
SCR is the official Reporter of the Supreme Court judgments. Supreme Court Reports is governed by the Supreme Court (Council of Law Reporting) Rules, 1964.The head notes of the judgments are prepared by Editorial Officers and are approved by the Hon’ble Judges. The Supreme Court Reports are published under the supervision of the Supreme Court Council of Law Reporting consisting of Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India, two Hon’ble Judges of the Supreme Court, Attorney General for India and an Advocate nominated by the Executive Council of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
Sample Citation: Mohd. Abdul Kadir & ors v. Director General of Police, Assam & Ors. (2009) 9 SCR 611
- SUPREME COURT JOURNAL (SCJ)
Supreme Court Journal, the oldest Journal founded in the year 1938 by name Federal Court Journal (1938 TO 1949), then named as Supreme Court Journal in 1950, is published by ALT Publication from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Supreme Court Journal is a monthly publication. It covers 8 Volumes in a year.
Sample Citation: M. Yogendra v. Leelamma N. 2009 (7) SCJ 2
- CRIMINAL LAW JOURNAL (CLJ)
Criminal Law Journal is a monthly publication covering criminal law cases decided by Supreme Court of India and High Courts of various states. There are four volumes in a year. But cases are cited without volumes due to running page numbers on consecutive volumes in the same year.
Sample Citation: Mohd. Yasin v. State (N.C.T. OF Delhi) & Ors. 2009 Cri.L.J. 4405 (SC)
Now that you know all about legal citations, get started on reading some cases. All the best!
