Abstract
This Notes from the Field (‘NFF’) studies an attempt to build a nationwide dataset of cases instituted under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 using the eCourts portal, an open access state-led digital repository of all judicial records across India. It uses this experimental attempt to create new methodological and epistemological ways of thinking about data when undertaking socio-legal research. The paper argues that the appearance of judiciary-led digital transparency and visibility masks deeper concerns with data integrity. Through a process of manual data extraction across than 3,647 court complexes on the eCourts portal, the study reimagines technical failures and misclassifications as obfuscatory practices on the part of the State, specifically in digitally mediated interfaces. The ambitious scope of the original project, that of producing a nationwide quantitative dataset, was reshaped to speak to the challenges in carrying out empirical legal research. The paper argues that researchers must interrogate how state data is stored, classified, and made visible, rather than treating all data as neutral or objective. Though studies on quantitative data use technological tools, the iterative process of the socio-legal researcher is still valuable in bringing richness to seemingly objective data. Lasting and deep empirical inquiries depend as much on understanding the conditions of data production as on analysing the data itself.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.55496/LSCN4941
Included in
Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Rule of Law Commons, Social Statistics Commons
