How to Connect the eCourtsIndia MCP to Claude: A Step-by-Step Guide (Video + Screenshots)

To connect the eCourtsIndia MCP to Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, click Add custom connector, paste https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp, click Add, then Connect, and sign in to eCourtsIndia in the window that opens (OAuth). No API key or Client ID is needed. If a client cannot do OAuth, append ?token=eci_live_YOUR_TOKEN. Setup takes about a minute and gives Claude 39 tools over 32 crore+ case records, the statute book and the electoral roll.

Last updated: 23 September 2026

This is the guide people ask us for most. You have Claude, or Cursor, or Gemini, or ChatGPT, or Grok, or Perplexity. You have Indian court work to do. And there is a gap between the two: your AI has never heard of your CNR, does not know today’s cause list, cannot look up a case in Karnataka, and will still cite IPC 302 for murder. The eCourtsIndia MCP closes that gap. It is the connector that puts real, verifiable court data, statute text and voter-roll lookups inside the AI you already use, so you stop copy pasting and start asking questions in plain English.

Below is the foolproof version. Watch the 90 second walkthrough, then follow the screenshots and the exact URL. We cover Claude step by step, then Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity, then the first prompts to try, the full list of 39 tools, and a long section on what you can actually do with it. If you are new to the idea of an MCP, start with our MCP 101 for legal teams explainer and come back here to connect. Per-client tabs also live on the MCP setup guide.

Key takeaways

• The connection URL is https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp. Add it as a custom connector, click Add, then Connect, and sign in (OAuth 2.1; no key, no Client ID). ?token=eci_live_YOUR_TOKEN is a fallback for hosts that cannot do OAuth.
• It works with Claude (web and desktop), Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Cline, ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity, plus any other MCP compatible client including Gemini.
• You get 39 tools (server v4.46) covering case search, briefs, orders, cause lists, portfolio monitoring, the court hierarchy, a free statute book, the electoral roll and LegalCheck background checks. Nineteen of those tools never consume credits.
• The data is live: 32 crore+ case records across the Supreme Court, all 25 High Courts, district and taluka courts in all 36 states and union territories, and 18 tribunal and commission types, plus 10,084 Acts / 2,69,602 provisions and the Indian electoral roll.
• Connecting is free. A free account gets ₹200 in credits and no card is required, and it can generate a Partner API token too. There is no separate MCP charge; data tools share the REST wallet. Full rates: mcp.ecourtsindia.com/pricing.
• The MCP is read only. It reads and verifies public court data. It never files, never writes to the government portal, and never changes a hearing date.

Watch: connect the eCourtsIndia MCP to Claude in 90 seconds

The video runs through the whole setup end to end, then shows three real prompts working against live data. If you prefer to read, skip past it, every step is written out below with screenshots. Claude’s menu labels have moved slightly since the video was recorded; the written steps below match the current app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKoBEaKuY9U

What you need before you start

Three things, and only three.

• An MCP capable AI client. Claude on the web or the desktop app is the most common. Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity all work too.
• An eCourtsIndia account. Free signup at ecourtsindia.com/auth/register: an email address, no card, and ₹200 in credits. OAuth Connect uses that login. A Partner API token (eci_live_...) is only needed if your host cannot do OAuth, and any account, including a free one, can create one at dashboard/api/keys.
• The MCP server URL. That is https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp. Click Connect for OAuth. Only add ?token=eci_live_YOUR_TOKEN if the host cannot open the eCourts login, and treat that URL as a secret.

If you do not have an account yet, create a free account first, then come back to Claude. One thing not to do: do not ask Claude in a chat message to connect the MCP for you. The Connect button in the connector settings is what starts the sign-in.

Connect the eCourtsIndia MCP to Claude, step by step

To add the eCourtsIndia MCP in Claude, open Settings, go to Connectors, click Add custom connector, paste https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp, click Add, then Connect, and sign in to eCourtsIndia. The steps are the same on claude.ai and in the Claude desktop app. Here is each one in full.

1. Open the Connectors page. Click your profile, then Settings, then Connectors. On claude.ai you can also reach the same page from Customize, then Connectors. This is where Claude keeps every tool it can talk to.
2. Click Add custom connector at the bottom of the connector list.
3. Paste the URL https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp (no token) and give it a name such as eCourts India. There is no API key or Client ID to fill in.
4. Click Add, then Connect. A browser window opens the eCourtsIndia login. Sign in and approve access, and Claude pulls in all 39 tools.
5. Check it worked. Start a new chat and ask: Which states does eCourts India cover? That calls the free get_states tool, so it costs nothing and proves the wiring.

Only build ?token=eci_live_YOUR_TOKEN if OAuth is unavailable on that host.

The card below sums up the whole flow. Once the connector shows as connected, every new chat can use it; you do not need to reconnect each time.

Connect it to Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity

The same server URL works everywhere. The only thing that changes is where you paste it. Exact clicks for each client: mcp.ecourtsindia.com/setup.

Tool	Where to add the MCP
Claude (web and desktop)	Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector, paste the URL, click Add, then Connect.
Claude Code	Run claude mcp add --transport http ecourts-india https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp in your terminal, then run /mcp inside Claude Code to authenticate.
Cursor	Cursor Settings, then MCP, then Add new global MCP server. Add {"mcpServers": {"ecourts-india": {"url": "https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp"}}} (no command or args), then click Login next to the server.
Windsurf / VS Code / Cline	Add the same URL to your MCP config (Windsurf uses serverUrl, VS Code uses "type": "http"), reload, then complete the host’s sign-in step.
ChatGPT / Grok	Add a custom or remote MCP server in the connectors settings, paste the URL, choose OAuth, and sign in. ChatGPT offers custom connectors on paid plans.
Perplexity	Account Settings, then Connectors, then + Custom connector, choose Remote, paste the URL with OAuth and Streamable HTTP, click Add, then sign in from the connector card. Available on Perplexity Pro, Max and Enterprise.

Whichever client you use, the pattern is identical: add a custom or remote MCP server, paste https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp and click Connect (OAuth). Use ?token= only as a fallback. If a client only supports local servers, bridge to the remote one with npx -y mcp-remote https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp.

Your first prompts

This is the moment most people smile. With the connector live, type any of these into a normal chat. Claude decides which tools to call, handles the API calls and pagination, and answers in plain English. Start with the free one to confirm the wiring.

Which states does eCourts India cover?
Then list the court complexes in Pune district.

Pull my cause list for Delhi district courts for tomorrow.
Sort by courtroom and flag anything listed for Arguments.

Give me a client ready brief for CNR MHPU010001102009,
including the latest order in plain English.

What does BNS 103 say, is it bailable, and what was the IPC section
before 1 July 2024? Map CrPC 438 as well.

A quick note on what “live” means. A plain keyword search for cheque bounce through the MCP on 23 September 2026 returned 3,514 indexed records, most of them High Court and Supreme Court orders that use the phrase, each with its CNR, parties, status and AI summary. That is the point of the connector: your AI is reading the actual record, not guessing from training data. The statute prompt is the other half: the model must call lookup_provision / lookup_offence / map_provision instead of recalling a section number from training data. If you want to understand the vocabulary behind these answers, our CNR Number Decoded guide, the eCourtsIndia Search Guide and the IndiaCode launch are the references worth bookmarking.

The 39 tools you just unlocked

You do not need to memorise these. Claude picks the right tool for your question. But it helps to know the shape of what is now possible. Live list: mcp.ecourtsindia.com/tools.

Group	Tools	What they do
Discovery (8, free)	lookup_enum, fetch_live_enums, fetch_reference_file, get_search_capabilities, get_states, get_districts, get_complexes, get_courts	Live enums, search field catalog, and the court hierarchy.
Search (4)	search_cases, search_and_get_first_case, search_and_brief_top_cases, search_causelist	Full-text case search and cause-list search (district/taluka lists only).
Case and order (7)	get_case_details, get_case_brief, batch_get_case_details, get_case_with_latest_order, list_case_orders, get_order_markdown, get_order_ai_analysis	Full record, briefs, order text and AI analysis. Start a CNR with get_case_brief.
Cause list (3)	get_available_causelist_dates (free), check_cnr_causelist, get_court_docket	Dates with a list, CNR batch listing check (1 to 100 CNRs), and a court docket. High Court / tribunal CNRs will show as not listed: we hold no cause-list data for those courts.
Monitor (5)	monitor_portfolio, refresh_case, refresh_and_wait_for_case, bulk_refresh_cases, check_refresh_status (free)	Watchlists and live re-scrape. Refresh typically lands in 2 to 10 minutes. Do not re-queue; poll status instead.
LegalCheck (2)	submit_legal_check, get_legal_check (free)	Identity-first litigation background check on a person or company. Submitting costs ₹99, or ₹33 on an active subscription; reading the report is free.
Electoral (3)	search_electoral_roll, lookup_epic, get_electoral_capabilities (free)	Voter rolls. ECI state codes such as S01, not court DL. A name match is not an identity match.
Statute (7, all free)	search_statute, lookup_provision, lookup_case_provisions, map_provision, get_cpc_rule, lookup_offence, list_instruments	What the law says: Acts, provisions, CPC First Schedule, offence classification, IPC/BNS mapping. Not a search of the 32 crore+ case corpus.

What you can actually do with it

This is the part that matters. Connecting the MCP is a means, not the end. Here is what each kind of user gets on the other side of that one minute setup.

For litigants and individuals

Ask Claude to track your own case in plain language. Give it your CNR and it returns the full history, the next hearing date, and the latest order rewritten in English instead of legalese. You can ask “has anything changed on my case since last week” and it will tell you. No portal navigation, no cause list PDFs, no legal jargon. If you are checking on a matter you are personally involved in, pair this with our guide on tracking a case in plain English with AI.

For advocates and litigation practices

This is where the connector earns its keep every single day. A 5 am cause list brief before your first chai, pulled across the district courts you appear in, sorted by courtroom, with the miscellaneous listings flagged. A one prompt portfolio check that tells you which of your fifty matters moved overnight. A client ready brief generated from the live record in seconds. A free look-up of the provision you are arguing, including whether it is bailable and what the old IPC number was. We wrote two dedicated playbooks for exactly this: running a litigation practice across nine courts in one Claude window and the 5 am cause list problem and how to fix it with one MCP call.

For in house and general counsel teams

Corporate legal teams live and die by portfolio visibility. With the MCP connected, Claude can watch a book of hundreds or thousands of matters, surface the ones with new orders or changed hearing dates, and roll them into a weekly digest without a bespoke docket tool. A bank’s legal team can keep tabs on tens of thousands of Section 138 cheque bounce matters from one AI workspace instead of a dozen court portals. Our litigation portfolio monitoring playbook for general counsel walks through the full setup.

For legaltech builders and product teams

If you are building, the MCP is the fastest way to prototype anything that touches Indian court data. You can ship a working assistant in a weekend that used to take a quarter, because the search, authentication, pagination and formatting are handled for you. When you are ready to move from prototype to production, the same data is available as a plain REST API with 23 endpoints. Read our complete developer guide to the eCourtsIndia API for endpoints, refresh, bulk refresh and code samples in cURL, Python and Node.

For background verification and due diligence

Court history is a core signal for pre employment screening, tenant verification, lender underwriting and partnership due diligence. Since v4.46 the MCP carries LegalCheck: ask Claude to run submit_legal_check on a person or company with whatever identity details you hold (father’s name, address, directors), and get_legal_check returns a risk band with every match, its identity band and what it was matched on. For quick exploration an analyst can still search a name across the case databases and summarise pending and past matters in one pass. Separately, lookup_epic / search_electoral_roll can confirm a voter-roll appearance. A name match on either dataset is not proof of identity. Our LegalCheck launch post explains the method, and building a legal due diligence and background verification engine covers the wider workflow on India’s court data.

For legal research, academia and data journalism

Because search runs full text across the actual order and judgment text, you can ask real research questions and get real answers. A phrase search for specific performance across the High Courts returned 1,34,704 records on 23 September 2026, and you can facet that by court, year and status in the same call. The statute book adds a second research surface: map every high-use IPC section to BNS, or ask which reported judgments construe Article 21, knowing that index is curated (4,900+ reported judgments), not the whole case corpus. Law students should start with our empirical court research starter kit.

For drafting and order analysis

Once Claude can read the actual order text through the MCP, drafting gets grounded in fact. Ask it to read the last three orders on a matter and draft a status note, or to extract the operative directions from a judgment before you cite it. Pair get_order_ai_analysis with lookup_case_provisions so the model states both what the case is and what it decides. Always have it verify case facts, hearing dates, section text and citations through the MCP before you rely on them.

Billing, credits and what stays free

The MCP uses the same Partner API credits as the REST API. There is no separate MCP charge. Connecting is free. Nineteen tools cost nothing at any volume: court structure, live enums, search and electoral capabilities, cause-list dates, refresh-status polls, reading a LegalCheck report, and all seven statute tools. The data fetching tools, such as search, case details, orders, cause lists, refresh, electoral search and submitting a LegalCheck, draw on your credits. Credits are prepaid, so an empty wallet fails a request rather than generating a bill. New accounts start with ₹200, and you can top up any time. Base rates and worked examples: mcp.ecourtsindia.com/pricing and ecourtsindia.com/api/pricing.

Troubleshooting, so the setup is truly foolproof

If something does not work first time, it is almost always one of these.

• No tools showing up. Close and reopen the settings screen, or restart the client, so it re registers the server. Confirm the connector is listed, connected and enabled for the chat.
• An authentication or 401 error. If you added the connector with Connect, the linked key may have been revoked: remove and re-add the connector, then sign in again. If you used ?token=, re copy the eci_live_... token from the API keys page and make sure it sits after token= with nothing extra.
• You need a token but cannot find one. Every account, including a free one, can generate a Partner API token from the API keys page in the dashboard. You only need it for clients that cannot do OAuth.
• A case looks out of date. Ask Claude to refresh it. refresh_and_wait_for_case queries the official court servers; the scrape typically lands in 2 to 10 minutes, not seconds. If it says it did not land in time, the refresh is already queued, so poll check_refresh_status instead of re-queueing.
• An order returns nothing or times out. Order text and AI analysis are produced on demand the first time. Wait thirty to sixty seconds and ask again.
• A High Court matter shows as not listed. Cause lists in the MCP cover district and taluka courts only. That result means we hold no cause-list data for that court, not that the case has no hearing.
• You hit a wall on credits. Statute, court structure and enum tools stay free, so you can keep looking up the law; top up credits to resume data pulls.
• Still stuck. Check the live server status at mcp.ecourtsindia.com/health.

Privacy and the read only guarantee

Two things worth stating plainly. First, the MCP is read only. It reads and verifies public court records. It cannot e file, submit pleadings, write to services.ecourts.gov.in, or change a hearing date. If any vendor claims an AI that automatically files in Indian courts, treat that the way you would treat a stranger offering to sign your vakalatnama. Second, your AI provider sees your prompts, as it always does. The connector does not change that. What it does is fetch legal data live under your account, and the names of parties in public court records are, by definition, already public. For the fuller picture, our MCP 101 explainer covers the security model in depth.

Next steps

• Create a free account if you do not have one, then open the setup guide and copy https://mcp.ecourtsindia.com/mcp.
• Add the custom connector in Claude, click Add, then Connect, and sign in.
• Ask Which states does eCourts India cover?, run the starter prompts above, including the statute one, then try your own CNR.
• Go deeper with the Search Guide and the MCP 101 explainer.

One URL, one minute, and your AI can finally read Indian court data and the statute it is citing. The questions you ask next are where the real work begins.

Frequently Asked Questions