Vitark

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---
name: legal-research
description: Research Indian judgments, tribunal decisions, statutory text, and later judicial treatment with Vitark MCP; use for authority finding, named-case lookup, source verification, and citation-grounded legal research.
---

# Vitark Legal Research

Use Vitark MCP for Indian legal research. Treat retrieved material as research evidence, not legal advice, and state material source and coverage limits.

## Choose the tool

- Use `vitark_search` for issue-based research. Pass the user's legal question verbatim; the tool performs query planning, retrieval, deduplication, reranking, and enrichment internally. Use `scope="cases"`, `scope="statutes"`, or `scope="all"`. Put a bench or case type in the query text because those are not filters. Add `courts`, date or year bounds, statute-year bounds, `ministry`, or `limit` only when the request supplies or clearly requires them.
- Use `vitark_statute_search` for focused statutory research and exact Act-and-section retrieval. When a prior result supplies `act_id`, pass it back with `section_number`; do not guess `act_slug`. Quote `section_text`, never the clipped `snippet`, and treat the section as complete only when `section_text_complete` is true.
- Use `vitark_case_find` for a party or case name, docket number, neutral citation, or CNR. Pass either `name` or `case_number`. A partial name match is only a candidate until the metadata or text confirms the same matter.
- Use `vitark_case_text` when the judgment's reasoning or exact words matter. It accepts a CNR and can also resolve an unambiguous neutral citation or docket number. Continue long judgments with the returned `next_offset` while `truncated` is true.
- Use `vitark_similar_cases` after identifying a strong seed CNR. Set `group_by_case=true` when the user needs distinct judgments rather than passage-level results.
- Use `vitark_entity_suggest` to resolve a judge, party, advocate, Act, or place to the canonical value used by the entity index.
- Use `vitark_cases_by` for metadata lists by judge, party, advocate, Act and section, court, year, category, disposition, case type, or case number. Prefer a norm returned by `vitark_entity_suggest`. Always pair `section` or `act_year` with `act` or `act_norm`. This index covers only the entity-extracted subset and is topic-blind.
- Use `vitark_case_citations` for Acts and cases cited by a known judgment and for approximate later citing candidates. It requires a CNR returned by Vitark.
- Use `get_credit_balance` when the user asks about credits, a call is declined, or a planned workflow would make many paid calls. It is free.

The callable surface has exactly these nine tools. Do not call a name absent from the connected server's tool catalog.

## Read result envelopes

Tool results arrive as JSON text. Parse the JSON object before assessing it; do not expect structured-content fields or an output schema.

For search envelopes, distinguish `results` (cases) from `statute_results` (statutes). Check `status`, `source_outcomes`, `resolved_scope`, `notes`, `empty_corpora`, and `unresolved_courts`. `resolved_scope.legs.partial_detail` identifies incomplete sources and gives human-readable reasons. A partial or failed source, an unresolved court, a searched corpus with no matches, and an ordinary zero-result query are different outcomes; report the one the response actually states.

Read `support_basis` before interpreting `support_level`. In case search it grades rerank relevance, not legal entailment. In focused statute search it grades Act-and-section identity, not whether the provision answers the user's question. Review `statutory_provisions` before semantic statute rows, then follow `resolved_scope.statute_reading_order`; duplicate statute mirrors may have been collapsed. If statute rows were not reranked, do not compare producer vector ranks across collections.

If the user gives a section number without identifying the Act or regulation, ask which enactment

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