A couple of days ago, while doing research on a particular topic, I came across a Supreme Court Judgment with the citation of a journal which I in my limited experience as an Advocate had never dealt with.
The Journal citation was SCT. I tried googling a lot with the citation and also with the probable full form of the Journal which came in my mind – “Supreme Court Times”, however, unfortunately till date I have not been able to find any such citation / journal for any cases whatsoever on any of the leading journal websites / Supreme Court / High Court websites.
However, while trying to find out what SCT really is, I came across a couple of pages / documents on the website of the Hon’ble Supreme Court that were compiled by the Librarian of the Judges Library of the Supreme Court.
The said tool, although not very useful in today’s date given the online legal case packs, journals, etc., it can be of much use if we still prefer using the physical hard copies of the journal in our office, or are doing a research on a particular topic in the library of the Court.
It is known that all the libraries may not include and the journals possible under the earth, because of various limitations such as space constraint, financial constraints, etc.
Therefore, this humungous piece of information, that is uploaded on the website of the Supreme Court, will be of much use for all the Advocates and Law Students out there doing research on any given topic.
The equivalent citation table has been made available on the website of the Supreme Court in the following format (links have been added to the particular Volumes):
“This Equivalent Citation Table is in four volumes:-
1 Volume 1 – AIR (SC) = SCR = SCC = JT = SCALE
2 Volume 2 – SCC = SCR = AIR (SC) = JT = SCALE
3 Volume 3 – JT = SCR = SCC = AIR (SC) = SCALE
4 Volume 4 – SCALE = SCR = SCC = AIR (SC) = JT”
These parallel citations are very important as no equivalent citation table is available which may provide equivalent citation of the cases which are reported in the Supreme Court Reports, which is the official Journal of the Supreme Court, where all reportable judgments are reported and is available free of cost online.
In the same one pager help file – “How to find” it has been stated as follows:
“All the Citations have been arranged in chronological sequence, in ascending order of pagination. For example, if an equivalent citation of 1950 AIR 211 is to be obtained, one has to see in the year 1950 in volume 1 and then in the ascending order of pagination, he will find that equivalent citation of this in SCR as 1950 SCR 519. For reaching the page from which citations of a particular year begins, help of “Index” may be taken.
This table contains the equivalent citations from 1950 till date and will be updated from time to time. An “Index” indicating page number, from which citations of a particular year begins, has also been provided in each volume.”
In my view, if someone is practicing law, it will be very useful to keep this PDF file of equivalent citation saved as many a times while researching and looking for judgments in the Courts’ library, it is difficult to find the equivalent citation of a particular judgment and thus keeping a record of these equivalent citations for all judgments from 1950 till date will be very useful.
The Supreme Court Judges Library has definitely conducted a big, huge and humungous task of much public importance which might be very useful to the law students, advocates and persons litigating.
Click here to see the equivalent citations table.
