Editorial Policy

LegalRepublic.in | Last updated: 9 May 2026 | Effective immediately upon update

LegalRepublic.in is an independent legal news, digital only publication. We report on judgments, orders, and proceedings of Indian courts and tribunals from original source documents. We exist to make the judicial record accessible, accurate, and understandable to lawyers, litigants, scholars, and any member of the public with a stake in how courts reason.

This policy describes, in plain terms, how we source our reporting, how we maintain independence from those we cover, how we treat individuals who appear in the judicial record, how we use AI tools, and what we do when we get things wrong. It is a binding commitment to our readers. We review and update it as our practices evolve — material changes are logged at the top of this page with a date.

If anything in this policy is unclear, or if you believe we have departed from it, we want to hear from you. Our contact and corrections process is described in Section 8 of this document.

Contents

1. Sourcing Standards
2. Editorial Independence
3. Conflicts of Interest & Disclosure
4. Accuracy & Pre-Publication Verification
5. Voice, Tone & Quotation Standards
6. Pending Matters, Sub Judice Reporting & Contempt Considerations
7. Privacy & Identification of Individuals
8. Corrections Policy
9. AI Assistance Policy
10. Photographs & Illustrations
11. External Contributions & the Dissent Section
12. Complaints & Accountability
13. Updates to This Policy

1. Sourcing Standards

Primary sources only

Every article on this site is sourced from the original text of a judgment, order, or formal court record. We do not report from press conferences, bar association statements, press releases issued by parties, or second-hand accounts of what occurred in a courtroom. If we did not read it in the official document, we do not report it as fact.

Where a court's own registry makes the judgment text available electronically — through the Supreme Court's JUDIS database, the eCourts portal, a High Court's official website, or a tribunal's judgment repository — we retrieve it from that source. Third-party legal databases may be used for access convenience, but the citation we verify against is always the official one.

Mandatory citation elements

Every article carries the following information, verified from the source document before publication:

Case name — As it appears on the cause list or the order sheet, including all petitioner and respondent names to the extent the document records them. Where names are abbreviated in the official citation, we note this.

Citation — The neutral or law-report citation assigned by the court, if available. Where no citation has been assigned yet (as is common for very recent orders), we note the case number and date and update the citation once assigned.

Bench composition — The full names and designations of all judges who authored, concurred in, or dissented from the judgment or order. We do not report only the senior judge's name where a bench of two or more decided the matter.

Proceeding type — Whether the matter is a writ petition, criminal appeal, civil appeal, special leave petition, suo motu proceeding, review petition, curative petition, or other recognised category. This is displayed clearly so readers understand the procedural posture of what they are reading about.

Handling oral proceedings

We do not publish live narrations of what advocates or judges said during hearings unless those oral observations are subsequently confirmed by the court's written order or judgment in the same matter. Oral observations from the bench, however striking, do not constitute the court's ruling and are frequently mischaracterised when reported without the written record.

If we choose to report on oral proceedings, we will clearly note that the content reflects unrecorded oral observations and does not represent the court's final view.

Principle: The judicial record — not commentary on it, not summaries of it, not paraphrases relayed through other outlets — is the irreducible minimum of our sourcing obligation. If a judgment text is unavailable to us, we do not report on it as though it were.

2. Editorial Independence

No sponsored content

LegalRepublic.in does not accept sponsored content, paid placements, advertorials, or any form of commercial arrangement under which a third party influences what we publish or how we frame it. No article on this site has been written, shaped, or approved by an advertiser, law firm, litigant, government body, or any party whose matters we report on.

Display advertising, if carried on this site, is clearly marked as advertising and is visually separated from editorial content. Advertisers have no input into our editorial decisions and no advance sight of articles that concern them.

No commercial relationships with covered parties

We do not enter into revenue-sharing agreements, referral arrangements, content partnerships, or any other financial relationship with law firms, individual advocates, courts, tribunals, or bar associations whose matters or members we cover. Where a potential commercial relationship of any kind is proposed to us by a party in a matter we report on, we decline it and, where material, we disclose that it was proposed.

Operational independence

Editorial decisions — what to cover, how to frame it, what to publish, and what to correct — are made by our editorial staff without direction from investors, funders, advertisers, government bodies, or external parties of any kind. Our editorial leadership can be reached through our contact page. We will not name individuals in this policy because personnel change; the commitment is institutional, not personal.

3. Conflicts of Interest & Disclosure

Writer disclosure obligations

Any writer who has a personal, professional, financial, or familial connection to a case, party, advocate, or judge involved in a matter they are reporting on must disclose that connection to the editor before the article is assigned or accepted. This includes but is not limited to:

Prior professional involvement — Having worked at a firm that acted in the matter, having appeared as counsel, having been briefed on the matter by any party, or having drafted documents in it at any stage.

Personal relationships — A family relationship, friendship, or personal acquaintance with any judge, advocate, or party to the proceedings that a reasonable reader would consider relevant.

Financial interests — Holding shares, a financial stake, or any pecuniary interest in any corporate entity that is a party to the proceedings.

Prior public statements — Having written, posted, or spoken publicly about the same case or parties in a way that establishes a pre-existing view likely to influence coverage.

Editor's response to disclosed conflicts

Where a conflict is disclosed, the editor will determine whether it can be adequately managed through disclosure alone (in which case a note appears at the foot of the article), or whether recusal from the assignment is required. Minor prior familiarity with a legal area is generally not a conflict. A prior professional involvement in the same matter, or a close personal relationship with a principal party, ordinarily requires recusal.

Where a writer is recused, the article is reassigned. We do not publish articles under arrangements that have not been reviewed by the editor.

Recusal and disclosure notes

Where a writer has disclosed a manageable connection, the article will carry a disclosure note in substantially the following terms:

"The author previously [describe connection]. This is disclosed in accordance with our editorial policy. The author has not been involved in the matter in any capacity since [date/stage]."

We do not suppress disclosure notes at the request of writers, parties, or for any other reason.

4. Accuracy & Pre-Publication Verification

What we check before publication

Before an article is published, the following elements are verified against the source document by the writer or a designated fact-checker:

Case name spelling and party identity — Names of natural persons, corporate entities, and statutory bodies are verified against the judgment or order text. We do not rely on press coverage of the same case to confirm spellings.

Citations — Paragraph numbers, page references, and cited cases within the judgment are verified against the original text. We do not reproduce citations from secondary sources without checking them against the primary.

Bench composition — All judicial names are verified against the court's official roster or the heading of the judgment. Transliteration variants of names are standardised to the form used by the court itself.

Procedural posture — The stage at which the matter was decided, the relief granted or refused, and whether the order is interim or final, is confirmed on the face of the document before reporting.

Direct quotations — Every quotation attributed to the judgment is verified word-for-word against the source text, including paragraph number, before publication.

Uncertainty and hedging

Where we are genuinely uncertain about an aspect of a matter — for example, where the order is ambiguous, where the full judgment has not yet been uploaded, or where only a headnote or digest is publicly available — we say so clearly in the article. We use phrases such as "according to the available order text," "the full judgment is not yet publicly available," or "we have requested a copy and will update this article when it is received." We do not suppress our uncertainty to appear definitive.

5. Voice, Tone & Quotation Standards

Plain English

We write in plain, accessible English. We do not use legal jargon without defining it the first time it appears in an article. Where a term of art is necessary — sub silentio, res judicata, locus standi — we provide a plain-language explanation in parentheses or in a brief note immediately following. Our audience includes lawyers, students, journalists, litigants, and members of the public who have no legal training. We write for all of them.

No speculation beyond the record

News reports on this site do not speculate about outcomes, about the reasons a judge may have decided a matter in a particular way beyond what the judgment itself records, or about the motives of parties, advocates, or courts. We report what the document says. Where a judgment is silent on a point, we note the silence rather than supply an explanation for it.

This standard applies to our news reports. Opinion, commentary, and analysis are permitted only in the Dissent section of this publication and are clearly labelled as such. The Dissent section carries its own editorial note explaining that its content represents the author's view, not the publication's reporting.

Direct quotation from judgments

Direct quotation from the text of a judgment is a privilege, not a default. We treat quoted language with particular care because it carries the authority of the court.

Limit per article — No more than three direct quotations from a judgment or order may appear in any single news article. Over-quotation substitutes the judgment's prose for editorial judgment about what is significant. We are a publication, not a verbatim transcript service.

Length limit — Each quotation must be fewer than fifteen words. Where the most significant passage of a judgment exceeds fifteen words, we paraphrase the balance and use only the essential phrase within quotation marks.

Attribution — Every quotation is attributed to the exact paragraph of the judgment from which it is drawn, in the form (Paragraph N) or, where the judgment does not carry paragraph numbers, the page number and nearest section heading.

Ellipses and editing — We do not use ellipses to join non-contiguous clauses into a single quoted passage. If a quotation requires ellipsis to be intelligible, we paraphrase instead.

Rationale: A publication that over-quotes judicial prose can inadvertently misrepresent the court's holding by presenting selective language without its qualifying context. Our policy of limited, attributed, verbatim quotation is designed to prevent that outcome.

6. Pending Matters, Sub Judice Reporting & Contempt Considerations

Reporting on live matters

We report on cases that are actively before courts. We do so carefully. The law of contempt in India, under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, prohibits publications that scandalise or lower the authority of a court, prejudice the fair trial of a proceeding, or interfere with the administration of justice. Our reporting policy on live matters is designed to stay well clear of these prohibitions.

What we will and will not do

We will report on what courts have decided at each procedural stage. Orders passed, reliefs granted or refused, and directions issued are fair subjects for reporting. These are matters of public record that courts have already disposed of.

We will not report on the likely outcome of a pending matter. Predicting how a court will rule, suggesting that one party's position is stronger as a matter of law, or framing a matter in a way that implies the court has already formed a view — beyond what it has expressed on the record — is outside our reporting standards.

We will not publish material that could prejudice a fair hearing. In matters involving criminal proceedings, we are particularly careful not to publish anything that goes to the guilt or innocence of an accused person in a way that could influence witnesses or public perception ahead of a verdict.

We will not reproduce allegations as facts. Where a matter involves allegations that have not been adjudicated — a petition that has been admitted, a charge that has been framed, an FIR that has been filed — we use appropriate attribution language. "The petition alleges," "according to the charge sheet," or "as per the complainant's version" are the forms we use. We do not present unproven allegations as established facts.

Identification of accused persons and under-trial prisoners

Where a matter involves an individual who is an accused person and has not been convicted, we exercise particular care in how we describe them. We use the word "accused" rather than "offender." We note the presumption of innocence where it is relevant to reader comprehension. We do not republish previous media coverage that may have treated the matter as settled when it was not.

7. Privacy & Identification of Individuals

The baseline: the judicial record is public

Judgments and orders of Indian courts are, in principle, public documents. We report from them. However, the fact that a court has recorded a person's name does not automatically mean that our republication of that name serves a legitimate public interest. We exercise editorial judgment about when to identify and when to protect.

Protected categories

Victims of sexual offences — We do not identify, or republish identifying details of, survivors of sexual offences. This applies regardless of whether their identity has been disclosed in the judgment text. Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code and its replacement under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita prohibit such disclosure, and we consider our obligation broader than the statutory minimum. Where a judgment uses a pseudonym or suppresses the name, we follow the court's practice.

Minors — We do not identify minors involved in any proceedings — whether as parties, complainants, accused persons, or witnesses — unless the matter has been determined in a manner that makes their identification appropriate and the court has itself permitted it.

Persons in matrimonial and family proceedings — Family court proceedings involve sensitive personal information. We name parties in these matters only where the legal point at issue is genuinely significant and identification is necessary to convey it. Where the legal point can be conveyed without naming the parties, we use initials or descriptions.

Individuals with mental health conditions — Where a judgment involves guardianship, institutionalisation, or treatment under mental health legislation, we handle identification of the person concerned with particular care and do not publish identifying details unless the matter has a clear public-interest dimension that cannot be served without identification.

Witnesses — Witnesses are identified in our reporting only where their testimony is itself the subject of the legal point being reported, and their identification serves the public interest in understanding that point.

Public figures

Public figures — elected officials, senior civil servants, senior advocates, corporate officers, and others who have voluntarily entered public life — accept a higher degree of scrutiny in respect of their exercise of public functions. Where a judicial proceeding directly concerns the exercise of a public function, we identify public figures in the same manner as courts do. Their privacy in matters unrelated to their public role remains entitled to protection.

Requests for anonymisation

Individuals named in our coverage may contact us to request that their name be anonymised or removed. We evaluate such requests on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the public interest in the matter, whether the court itself has since anonymised the record, and any change in circumstances since publication. We do not grant anonymisation requests automatically, but we take them seriously.

8. Corrections Policy

Our commitment

Errors are inevitable in journalism. Our commitment is not to publish error-free content — a promise no honest publication makes — but to correct errors promptly, visibly, and honestly when they occur. We do not silently alter published articles. We do not delete text that has turned out to be incorrect without noting the deletion.

Severity levels and correction placement

Timeline

• Minor corrections: within 24 hours of notification
• Major corrections: within 48 hours, subject to verification of the correction itself
• Critical corrections: no later than 24 hours in ordinary circumstances, sooner where ongoing harm to an individual is possible

How to submit a correction

Corrections may be submitted through our contact page. Please provide the article URL, the specific passage you believe is incorrect, the correct information, and, if available, a reference to the source document that supports your correction. We will acknowledge your submission within two working days and notify you of the outcome.

Distinguishing corrections from updates

A correction records that something we published was wrong. An update records that circumstances have changed — for example, that a matter we reported on has been further decided. These are labelled differently. An update appended to an article does not substitute for a correction if the original article contained an error.

9. AI Assistance Policy

Why we disclose this

We use AI language tools in parts of our editorial workflow. We disclose this because readers are entitled to know how the content they read has been produced, and because opacity about AI use in journalism creates credibility problems that are corrosive to trust over time.

What AI tools do in our workflow

AI tools are used at the drafting stage and only from the text of the source judgment or order. Specifically, an AI tool may be given the text of a judgment and asked to produce a structured first draft, extract key procedural details, or generate a summary of the operative holding. The AI tool works from the document we have retrieved. It is not browsing the web, inferring from other coverage, or generating claims untethered from the source text.

What AI tools do not do

Make editorial decisions — Whether to cover a matter, how to frame it, what the headline says, and whether the article is ready to publish are decisions made by human editors. AI tools do not determine coverage priorities.

Publish without human review — No AI-drafted content is published without appropriate human review and revision.

10. Photographs & Illustrations

No photographs of court proceedings

We do not publish photographs of court proceedings. Courts in India do not routinely permit photography inside courtrooms, and we consider the principle behind that prohibition to be sound. We do not use photographs taken surreptitiously or in breach of court rules.

Article illustrations

Visual elements accompanying articles on this site are generated SVG illustrations, not photographs of real people, real courtrooms, or real proceedings. They are abstract, thematic, or informational in nature. They are not intended to depict, and do not depict, any real individual.

Photographs of public figures

Where we carry a photograph of a public figure, the photograph must have been taken lawfully, with the subject's consent, and must be directly relevant to the matter being reported. We do not purchase or use paparazzi photographs. We do not use social media profile photographs without consent. We do not publish photographs of litigants, accused persons, or witnesses who are not public figures.

Attribution of visual content

All licensed or attributed visual content carries a credit line. Where we use Creative Commons-licensed material, we comply with the attribution requirements of the applicable licence.

11. External Contributions & the Dissent Section

News versus opinion

LegalRepublic.in maintains a strict structural separation between news reporting and opinion. News articles follow the standards set out in this policy: sourced from original documents, no speculation, no editorialising. The Dissent section is editorially distinct: it carries analysis, commentary, and argument on legal issues, clearly labelled as such.

Submission and review process for opinion

Opinion and analysis submitted for the Dissent section is reviewed by a senior editor before publication. Accepted pieces are edited for length, clarity, and compliance with our policy on defamation and contempt. We do not alter an author's substantive position through editing; if we disagree with it, we may commission a response or decline to publish rather than silently alter the piece.

Disclosure requirements for external contributors

External contributors must disclose any financial, professional, or personal interest in the subject of their piece. A barrister writing about a judgment in which they appeared for one of the parties must say so. An academic who has received funding from a party-affiliated body must disclose it. These disclosures appear on the published piece. We will not accept a piece from a contributor who refuses to make a required disclosure.

Defamation, contempt, and legal review

Submitted pieces that raise concerns about defamation, contempt of court, or other legal risk are reviewed by a legally-trained editor before publication. We will not publish material that, in our assessment, is likely to expose us or the contributor to liability, even where the contributor believes the material is defensible. Contributors are advised to seek their own legal advice before submission if their piece makes serious allegations about named individuals.

12. Complaints & Accountability

Who can complain

Any person — a reader, a party named in an article, a lawyer, a court officer, or any member of the public — may submit a complaint about any article on this site. You do not need to demonstrate that you are personally affected by the article to submit a complaint, though complaints from directly affected individuals are prioritised.

Scope of complaints

Complaints may relate to any departure from the standards set out in this policy, including: factual inaccuracy, failure to disclose a conflict of interest, improper identification of a protected individual, a quotation that misrepresents the source text, a failure to correct a known error, or a breach of our AI assistance disclosure standards.

Process

Complaints are submitted through our contact page. Please identify the specific article, the specific passage or practice you are complaining about, and the standard in this policy you believe has been breached. We will acknowledge your complaint within two working days and provide a substantive response within ten working days. Complex complaints involving legal issues may require longer; we will notify you if that is the case.

Escalation

If you are dissatisfied with our response to your complaint, you may escalate the matter to our editor in chief, whose contact details are available on request through the contact page. We are in the process of establishing an independent reader complaint panel; when it is constituted, this policy will be updated to reflect the referral pathway.

What we will not do

We will not ignore a complaint because the complainant is critical of our publication, because the subject matter is legally or politically sensitive, or because granting the complaint would require us to publish a correction that is embarrassing. The standard applies equally to all complaints.

13. Updates to This Policy

This policy was last updated on 9 May 2026. We review it at minimum annually, and whenever our editorial practices change in a material respect. Minor updates — clarifications, additions of detail, typographical corrections — are made without a formal announcement. Material changes — those that alter the substantive commitments we make to readers — are announced at the top of this page with a date and a brief description of what has changed.

Archived versions of this policy are available on request through our contact page. If you believe the current version represents a material retreat from a commitment we previously made, please contact us and we will address your concern.

This policy is a public commitment. We do not claim perfection; we claim accountability.

LegalRepublic.in — @@LR_INLINE_0@@