SCC Online has several options other than its default. These can significantly increase the accuracy of searches. The Annotation Box is one of the software’s less well-known, but incredibly useful, features. It allows the SCC Online software to be used as a personal caselaw diary and noter-up.

SCC Online is still the market leader of offline legal databases. Its advantages are many, not least of which is its facsimilie printout of the full text, complete with headnotes, editorial notes, placetum marks — indistinguishable from a photocopy of the print journal. Its search engine is magnificent, supporting wildcards and a cleverly designed Boolean syntax. The unique near intelligently searches multiple terms within a defined proximity of each other; and you can change the proximity for each search. This note looks at some of the advanced features of the SCC search engine.

BUTTONS R US: THE DEFAULT SEARCH DIALOG

The default search dialog (the box that pops up when you click on search in the menu bar) has several options. We tend to ignore them. That’s a mistake.

Fig 01

Selecting databases

Here’s what the two radio buttons on the left do (see area in the left red circle in Fig 01 above):

• Pre-selected Databases. Pressing this radio-button triggers an auto-selection of SCC’s databases. It selects all databases except user annotations.
• Everywhere. This radio buttons searches in all databases, including user annotations

Right, Said Fred

Before going to any of the other buttons, it’s worth looking at the Set Databases over to the right. This only allows you to select from a list of SCC’s built-in default databases. Why anyone should want less than the full gamut passeth understanding; but more on that later.

Two more buttons here. Hint pops up a neat little window with examples of the search syntax.

Fig 02

Show Update Notes does just that. It’s like skimming the latest issue(s) of the print journal. You get to quickly scan the newly added updates to the database.

Six Degrees of (Non) Separation: The Advanced Button

Back on the left, clicking the advanced >> button expands the screen with a variety of choices.

Fig 03

There are six options, as shown in Fig.03. These are

1. Case Notes Area. Select or de-select (left-click once in the checkbox on the left of each choice) the case-notes database. Choose from Supreme Court, Privy Council and Bombay High Court, or all or any of these. Choices will vary depending on your installation.
2. Case Note Search Area. This one is very interesting. It lets you choose from any one of several options: full case note, catch words only, Coram only, party names only, citations only.
3. Full Text. This lets you choose between one or more built-in modules for the full-text search and retrieval.
4. Search in Years lets you narrow down a year-range within which the engine scans for results. It doesn’t look before the start year or after the end year you specify.
5. Near Means 10 Words. This one’s a beauty. It lets you decide how close or far apart your search terms should be when you use SCC’s proprietory near search operand.
6. Other Available Databases. Does nothing. It’s an utterly wanton plug for other SCC Online products. It evokes the proper modern urban Indian festive spirit, thus:

Angels we have heard on high …
Tell us to go out … and BUY …

Still, five out of six is better than most.

THE SEARCH MANTRA

There’s an underlying mantra to all searches, and particularly to searches in SCC Online:

1. Narrow search term + big database = pared-down results
2. Narrow search term + small database = frequently no results
3. Broad search term + big database = useless clutter
4. Broad search term + narrow database = pared-down results, depends on database selection

Or, to put it another way:

1. Specific search everywhere » useful
2. Specific search in some places only » sometimes useful
3. Search everything everywhere » meaningless
4. Search everything in some places only » possibly useful, depending on the database chosen.

Obviously, we most often want to go with search type 1 or 4 above, and sometimes 2. We definitely don’t want to do search type 3.

Therefore, in the SCC search model if you look for a word like court in all databases, you’re going to wind up with a load of rubbish. More likely than not, SCC will report it has found too much. That messages forces you to specificity.

So if, instead, you looked for "civil court" and chose to look only in the Supreme Court database, between the years 1990 and 1991, you’d get a potentially useful list of results (or none at all, which is just as useful).

Sometimes you know the name of the case, but aren’t sure of the entire case title. Looking for Bhagirathi everywhere, in all databases, through the entire period of reportage, generates 24 SC Notes, 31 SC Judgements, 1 Privy Council Note, 2 Privy Council judgments, 19 Statute references (including to the National Waterway (Allahbad-Haldia Stretch of the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly River) Act, 1982), 5 Bombay High Court Notes and 1 article reference. Possibly more, if you have more modules loaded.

Not terribly useful, this, if all you’re looking for is the Supreme Court decision with the name Bhagirathi about the evidentiary value of admissions.

Now if, on the other hand, you select the Advanced>> button, and select only:

• Supreme Court Case Notes
• Supreme Court Full Text; and
• Party Names only

you get only 11 SC Notes, of which five refer to the one you want: Bharat Singh v Bhagirathi, AIR 1966 SC 405.

But you also get 31 SC judgments, of which only one is the case you want.

Narrow it further. Select the same three advanced options listed above (Supreme Court Case Notes, Supreme Court Full Text and Party Names Only). This time, enter the following as your search term:

Bhagirathi NEAR admissions*

You get only four SC judgements, including the Bhagirathi case, and three others that refer to, cite or follow it. The permutations and combinations are virtually endless.

PARENTHETICALLY SPEAKING

Parentheses are a very powerful feature of the SCC search syntax. We tend to avoid them because they have to be used carefully.

What the parenthesis do is to group search terms for evaluation. You can “nest” parentheses, too, inside each other. Groups in parenthesis can be separated by the regular operators.

Thus, for example:

(compensation OR damages) (accident* NEAR motor) NOT negligence

will look for decision relating to compensation or damanges in motor accident cases other than negligence cases.

You could also look for

(("res ipsa loquitur" NEAR doctrine) NOT motor) NEAR medical

This returns exactly one citation.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH: ANNOTATIONS

But what if you’ve found a judgment outside the SCC Online database and want to make a note of it? Most of us tend to fill up physical caselaw diaries, arranged by subject sorted alphabetically. But it’s physical, and therefore limited. There’s only so much the diary can hold, even if you cramp your writing and squiggle all over the place. And when you’ve exhausted D and are running into E, you need to put access marks to continuation pages (or, horrors, books!). When you want to find something, you have to manually run your eye down the whole lot. And we’re human, so we make mistakes. Nobody is 100% consistent in how a case is classified (the subject). What if it should be in more than one subject? Does Bhagirathi go into Evidence, or Admissions, or both? Worse, what if you’ve got a Bombay decision outside the SCC Bombay High Court database, or an English or American judgment?

Enter SCC Annotations.

Up there in the menu bar, fourth button from the right, is a button called Annotations. Here’s how you use it. Let’s say you’ve made notes from the recent UK decisions reported in the Weekly Law Reports (WLR). These are outside the SC context. One of these is [2007] 1 WLR 1573, Tavoulareas v Tsavliris & Others (No 2). It is a case about recognition of a foreign judgment delivered ex-parte, without formal service on the defendants, who neither entered appearance nor appeared at the trial. The Court of Appeal held that the UK Courts are not bound to recognize such a judgment.

Look up "conflict of laws" (with the quotes), or "foreign judgment" (again, with the quotes). You’ll get a list. Let’s assume you’ve found one, Sankaran Govindan v Lakshmi Bharathi, (1975) 3 SCC 351.

Click on the Annotation button. A small box pops up. In this box, enter the information about the WLR Tavoulareas case. Click save.

Keep your User Annotations search option ticked on, and search for "conflict of laws" or "foreign judgment". It finds your WLR case too, in the Annotations.

You can search by any text you’ve put into your annotation, and SCC will find it (even the odd name, Tavoulareas). For that reason, you should be careful about entering subject lines. But the advantage is you can enter multiple subjects in one place, and SCC will always find them.

FRESHLY BAKED

If you’re online, click on the eighth button from the left, Latest Judgments (or click the View Menu and select Latest Judgements). This gives you a plain-vanilla, plain-text, no headnotes listing by date of the very latest Supreme Court decisions. You can access the main text and print it out. This is material that hasn’t yet gone through the SCC editorial desk; but it’s made available anyway.

VIRTUAL POST-ITS

Similar to annotations in concept, but more basic. You can ‘flag’ any particular decision in the SCC database and give it a bookmark name. Think Post-Its. SCC’s bookmarks are nothing but built-in digital Post-Its. You need to quickly find a decision you use often, and which you’ve bookmarked, just run through the bookmark list and it pulls it up.

BACK IT UP!

Nobody does this. Everybody should.

Click on File in the menu bar at the very top, then on Backup User Data. This saves all your bookmarks, user annotations and more. When you next have to reinstall SCC (it will happen, trust me), you can restore all this data.

GET IT IN PRINT

All this, and much, much more is in a well-written and well-organized Instruction Manual, availabled from Eastern Book Company Pvt Ltd for Rs.270. It’s worth every rupee. Email them for a copy.