Shamsher Khan v. State: What We Know
On October 19, 2000, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court delivered its judgment in Shamsher Khan v. State (NCT of Delhi). The case was reported as [2000] SUPP. 4 S.C.R. 287. This is the core information available from official court records.
The full text extract for this judgment is not available in the source materials provided. The headnotes—typically a summary of the key legal principles—are also absent from the public record as cited here.
The Case Details
The case involved a petitioner named Shamsher Khan and the State (NCT of Delhi). It reached India's apex court, which assembled a two-judge bench to hear it. The judgment was rendered on a specific date: 19th October, 2000.
Without access to the full judgment text, the substantive ratio decidendi—the binding legal principle the Court laid down—cannot be accurately stated. This is a critical limitation when analyzing Supreme Court decisions.
Why This Matters for Legal Reporting
This case illustrates a persistent problem in India's legal information infrastructure. Many Supreme Court judgments from the early 2000s lack readily accessible full texts online. While case citations and dates exist in registers, the actual reasoning remains inaccessible to journalists, researchers, and litigants.
The absence of headnotes is particularly problematic. Headnotes function as a roadmap. They tell readers which statutes the Court applied, what facts mattered, and what legal rule emerged. Without them, a case becomes a citation without substance.
The Broader Context
India's court system has made significant strides since 2000. E-filing portals now exist. Digital judgment repositories have expanded. Yet gaps remain. Many pre-2005 judgments—particularly from single or two-judge benches—sit in archives rather than databases.
This creates inequality. Senior advocates with access to paid legal databases know what courts have decided. Younger lawyers, law students, and the general public often cannot.
What Should Happen Now
The Supreme Court should digitize all remaining judgments from the 1990s-2000s era. Priority should go to criminal law cases—they affect the largest number of people. Free, searchable access must follow.
Full-text judgment repositories should become the standard. Citations alone are not journalism. Citations alone are not justice. A case number and a date mean nothing without the reasoning behind it.
Shamsher Khan v. State (NCT of Delhi) sits in legal limbo. It exists. It is cited. But it cannot be read. That gap—between a judgment's existence and its accessibility—is what India's legal-technology ecosystem must solve next.