Free and broad access versus cited, verified answers
Indian Kanoon is a free, publicly accessible search engine for Indian case law and central legislation — widely used across the profession and a genuine public good. It gives every practitioner, student, and citizen access to judgments they would otherwise have to pay for. Niyam is different: it answers your legal question in plain English, cites every proposition to the section or judgment it relied on, shows good-law treatment, and connects research to drafting in one workspace. This page compares them honestly.
- Plain-English Q&A — ask and get a cited answer, not a list of documents
- Every answer cited to the exact section or paragraph it relied on
- Good-law signals and drafting integrated in one workspace
₹100 trial · 200 credits to start in under a minute
Trusted by advocates and in-house teams across India
Grounded in India's primary legal sources
The shift
From searching for documents to getting an answered question
Indian Kanoon is an excellent starting point — it surfaces the judgment you didn't know you were looking for, and it does it for free. Niyam's model is different: ask what you actually want to know, get a direct answer grounded in primary sources with every proposition cited, and know before you rely whether the case is still good law.
Free keyword search
- Search by keyword and browse the returned judgment list
- Read multiple judgments to find the paragraph that governs the point
- No built-in way to check if a cited case has been overruled
- Switch to a word processor to draft from the research you found
With Niyam
- Ask the legal issue in plain English — get the governing authority directly
- Every proposition cited to the section or judgment it relied on
- Good-law treatment shown alongside every cited case
- Draft the submission or contract in the same session without switching tools
Where Niyam differs
Answers with citations — not just access to documents
Indian Kanoon opens the corpus. Niyam answers the question, cites the source, and checks the law. That is a meaningful step further for practitioners who need a cited, verified answer rather than a document to read.
Plain-English Q&A
Indian Kanoon's keyword search is useful when you know roughly what you're looking for. Niyam is built for the question you'd ask a colleague — plain English, and a direct cited answer, rather than a list of judgments to work through.
Semantic search over 72,000+ Indian judgments and the statute book
Every proposition cited
Every sentence in a Niyam answer is tied to the statute section or judgment paragraph it relied on. Open the source, read the exact text, confirm it says what Niyam says — because your professional judgment stays in charge.
100% of answers cited to a primary Indian source
Good-law signals
Indian Kanoon does not have a built-in citator. Niyam surfaces how later courts have treated every cited case — followed, distinguished, referred, or overruled — so you know before you build a submission on a precedent whether it is still good law.
Treatment signals across the Supreme Court and High Courts
Research and drafting in one place
Once you've found and verified the authority, draft the submission, note, or contract clause from it in Niyam without switching applications or manually re-entering the citation.
Research, citator, and drafting in one workspace
Privacy for client matters
Indian Kanoon is a public search engine — your queries pass through a third-party service with no professional privacy guarantee. Niyam is built around confidentiality: your queries, matters, and saved research stay private to your account, never sold and never used to train public models.
Private — never sold or used to train public models
Statute and judgment together
Niyam covers both the statutory provision and the judgments that interpret it in the same answer. Ask about a provision of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 and get the text alongside the Supreme Court's construction of it — not two separate searches.
Statutes, rules, and judgments in a single indexed corpus
Plain-English Q&A
Ask the question — get the authority
Indian Kanoon's full-text search is genuinely useful for finding judgments by keyword, party name, or citation. Niyam is built for a different moment: when you have a legal question rather than a document to find. Ask in plain English; get the governing section and judgment cited directly in the answer.
- Understands the legal issue, not just the search terms
- Returns a cited answer — statute and judgment together
- Finds the case argued in different words through semantic matching
Inline citations
Every claim carries its source
On Indian Kanoon you find the judgment; you then read it to find the paragraph that governs your point. In Niyam, the governing paragraph is cited inline with the answer — you open the source to verify, but you don't have to read the whole judgment to locate the relevant text.
- Pinpoint citations to the section, rule, or paragraph
- Jump from the answer straight to the primary source
- The governing text is identified — not left for you to find
Good-law checking
Know before you rely
Indian Kanoon has no built-in citator. If you find a case on Indian Kanoon and want to know if it's been overruled, you run a separate search. Niyam builds treatment history into the research answer — every cited case comes with a signal so you never carry an overruled authority into argument.
- Treatment history shown alongside every cited case
- Followed / distinguished / overruled at a glance
- Jump to the case that now governs when the law has moved
Privacy
Your client matters stay private
Indian Kanoon is a public search engine — appropriate for general research, but not designed around client matter confidentiality. Niyam is built for professional practice: your queries, matters, and saved research are private to your account, never sold and never used to train public models.
- Private by default — no public logging of your research queries
- Matters saved to your account, not to a shared corpus
- Your work product never used to train public models
How it works
From question to cited authority in three steps
A research workflow that goes beyond finding documents to answering legal questions with their sources.
Ask in plain English
Put the legal issue as you would to a colleague. Niyam reads Indian statutes, rules, and judgments to understand what you mean — no keyword syntax.
Get a cited answer
Every answer comes grounded in primary Indian sources — statute and judgment — with good-law treatment signals on every cited case.
Verify, draft, and save
Open the cited source, confirm it says what Niyam says, draft from it, and save the authority to the relevant matter — all in one workspace.
- Indian judgments indexed
- 72,000+
- Cited to primary sources
- Every answer
- From question to authority
- Seconds
- Signals on every cited case
- Good-law
Built on primary sources
Access + answers + good-law checks in one workspace
Niyam gives you the document, identifies the governing paragraph, checks the law, and connects it to drafting — in one session, with every source one click away.
72,000+
Supreme Court & High Court judgments indexed
100%
of answers cited to a primary source
Good-law
treatment signals on cited precedent
Private
your work product is never used to train public models
Niyam grounds every answer in real Indian primary sources. The statute or judgment cited is the one you open. Your matters and saved research stay private to your account, never sold and never used to train public models — which is the baseline professional practice requires.
Side by side
Niyam vs Indian Kanoon — an honest comparison
Indian Kanoon is a free, publicly accessible case law search engine — a genuine public good. Niyam is an AI-grounded research and drafting workspace. They solve different steps.
| Capability | Niyam | Indian Kanoon |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | ₹100 trial · 200 credits to start | Free — a genuine strength |
| Plain-English Q&A | Yes — ask and get a direct cited answer | Keyword search only; no conversational Q&A |
| Good-law / citator | Built into every answer | No built-in citator — manual check required |
| Inline citations to primary source | Yes — every sentence cited to section or paragraph | Documents found; governing paragraph not identified |
| Statute + judgment in one answer | Yes — both cited inline | Covers both; presented as separate documents |
| Drafting in same workspace | Yes — research connects to drafting | No drafting tools |
| Privacy for client matters | Private — never sold or used to train public models | Public search engine; no professional privacy guarantee |
| Corpus breadth | 72,000+ Supreme Court & High Court judgments | Very broad — tribunals, orders, and more; a strength |
FAQ
Questions, answered straight
Where Niyam helps — and where your professional judgment stays in charge.
For free access to a broad corpus — including tribunals, Revenue Court orders, and older judgments — Indian Kanoon has no equivalent. It is genuinely free, widely accessible, and a public good that has transformed access to Indian case law. If budget is the constraint, Indian Kanoon is the right answer. Niyam is better when you need a cited answer rather than a document to find, good-law signals without a separate lookup, privacy for client matters, or research connected to drafting in one workspace. The ₹100 entry is designed to be accessible, not to compete with free.
No. Indian Kanoon does not have a built-in citator. If you find a case on Indian Kanoon, checking whether it has been overruled requires running a separate search and reading the results. Niyam builds treatment history into the research answer itself — every cited case comes with a good-law signal.
No. Indian Kanoon has a very broad corpus that includes tribunals, boards, and older judgments that Niyam does not currently cover. Niyam indexes more than 72,000 Supreme Court and High Court judgments — the primary sources most practitioners rely on for binding and persuasive authority. If you need very granular tribunal decisions or historical material, Indian Kanoon's breadth is a real advantage.
Indian Kanoon gives you access to documents. Niyam gives you an answer — with the governing section and judgment cited, good-law signals on every cited case, and the ability to draft from the same workspace without switching tools. For practitioners who need a cited answer rather than a document to search, the difference in workflow value justifies the cost. The ₹100 entry is designed to let you verify that for yourself before committing.
Yes, and many practitioners do. Indian Kanoon for broad free access and tribunal coverage; Niyam for cited Q&A, good-law signals, and integrated drafting. They address different steps in the research workflow.
No. Niyam is legal research and drafting tooling. It provides legal information grounded in primary Indian sources. It does not create an advocate–client relationship and does not replace advice from a qualified legal professional. Verify every citation and exercise your own professional judgment.
Yes. Your queries, matters, and saved research stay private to your account. Your work product is never sold and never used to train public models.
Beyond search — answers grounded in Indian law, with every source cited.
Create your Niyam account in under a minute — ₹100 to start, 200 credits to try everything. Ask your first legal question and see the cited authority behind every answer.
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