The National Law School’s 2021 Justice Delayed working paper politely noted that empirical legal researchers in India were forced to work with “the hodgepodge of data that is either publicly available or can be acquired”. That was five years ago. Most dissertations still begin with that caveat. They do not have to. The data is now live, queryable, and free for any law student willing to ask a question precisely enough to get an answer. This post is your starter kit.
The lineage you inherit
Three institutions have carried the empirical flame in Indian legal research: DAKSH, the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy with its JALDI Constitution Bench Pendency Project, and the Judicial Data Collaborative. Their work has been strong. It has also been resource-intensive, relying on one-off data pulls, scraping projects, and RTI applications. The MCP changes the marginal cost. Every one of their questions becomes a minute of prompt time instead of a semester of engineering.
Five dissertation-worthy questions and the starter prompts
1. Does pendency correlate with district GDP? Pull NJDG pendency by district, join to per-capita GDP from the Reserve Bank’s state handbook, run the regression. The NLSIU paper ran this in 2019 and found an association. Redo it with 2024 data. The story is either the same or it has changed.
For each district in Uttar Pradesh, pull pendency counts via search_cases filtered to caseStatuses="PENDING", grouped by courtLocationFacetPath. Cross with RBI Handbook of Statistics 2024 on district-level economic indicators.
2. Adjournment burden by case type. Pull 1,000 Section 138 NI Act cases and 1,000 Motor Accident Claims matters from the same district courts. Count hearings per case. Compare. Our cheque bounce post covers the Section 138 pull.
3. Gender and outcomes at the Supreme Court. Query SCIN01 disposed matters for 2023-2025 with woman petitioners. Compare disposal outcomes. Methodological care required, but the raw data is available.
4. NDPS convictions on appeal. How often does the Allahabad HC reverse or modify an NDPS conviction? Query UPHC01 with caseType CRL_A and actsAndSections referencing the NDPS Act. Read the orders. Code by outcome.
5. Listing behaviour. Our flagship Court Data Watch post found that 57 of 60 sampled Delhi cause list rows with a populated status field sat inside Miscellaneous or Urgent buckets. Replicate at scale across a full month. Compare Delhi and Mumbai. That is a publishable paper.
A starter notebook skeleton
import requests, pandas as pd, os
API = "https://api.ecourtsindia.com/v1"
HEAD = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['ECI_KEY']}"}
def search(q, **kwargs):
body = {"query": q, "pageSize": 100, **kwargs}
return requests.post(f"{API}/cases/search", json=body, headers=HEAD).json()
result = search("cheque bounce", caseStatuses="PENDING", filingYears="2023,2024")
df = pd.DataFrame(result["data"]["results"])
df.groupby(["stateCode","filingYear"]).size().unstack(fill_value=0)
Plot it. Discuss it. Footnote every cell.
How to cite an MCP call in a dissertation
Recommended format:
eCourtsIndia MCP, search_cases with query="cheque bounce", caseStatuses="PENDING", filingYears="2023,2024". Accessed 24 April 2026 IST. Request ID 400065b4-0013-7500.
The request ID is returned on every response. Save it. Your examiner will thank you.
Our 2026 Research Fellowship
We are funding five student research fellowships in 2026. Selected candidates get free API and MCP access for six months, a named mentor from our team, and a guaranteed publish slot on this blog for any finished paper that passes peer review. Eligibility: current LLB, LLM, or PhD students at any recognised Indian law school. Apply with a one-page proposal to the email on ecourtsindia.com. Subject line: Court Data Watch Fellowship.
What this means for law students
Empirical legal research in India used to take semesters and patience. It now takes a good question and a weekend. Pick a question. Run the pull. Write the paper. Send it to your professor on Monday. See our MCP 101 guide for the install.
The limiting factor in Indian empirical legal research is no longer data access. It is the quality of the question.
Further reading: LLMs.txt for Indian Courts, Case Type Encyclopedia.