Academic Support Programme
DATABASE GUIDE
NAME PURPOSE LINK
SCC Online Used to access all Indian cases, citations, etc. Available at
(For further guidance refer to Annexure I) eresources.nls.ac.in
Manupatra Same as SCC Online (For further guidance Available at
refer to Annexure II) eresources.nls.ac.in
JSTOR Used to access scholarly articles, primarily Available at
B.A. subjects eresources.nls.ac.in
HeinOnline Used to access scholarly articles, primarily Available at
law subjects, and US cases eresources.nls.ac.in
Lexis Advance Used to access UK cases, US cases, Canadian Available at
cases, and cases from several other eresources.nls.ac.in
jurisdictions. Also relevant for accessing
commentaries
(For further guidance refer to Annexure III)
Westlaw Used to access US cases Available at
eresources.nls.ac.in
LibGen Used to access all kinds of books (For further Libgen.is
guidance refer to Annexure IV)
Z-Library Same as LibGen z-library.se
Sci-Hub Used to open most DOI links (Refer to sci-hub.se
Annexure V to understand how DOI
searches work)
Anna’s Archive Used to access books and journal articles. https://annas-
Mirrors sci-hub, Lib-Gen, Z-Lib archive.org/
(For further guidance refer to Annexure VI)
Stanford Encyclopedia Used to access scholarly articles related to https://plato.stanford.
of Philosophy social science courses such as sociology and edu/
political science
ANNEXURE I (SCC)
Login through IP Login
You will find multiple options to search from
Search the phrase you want cases for like ‘reasonable damages’. You can also use do a boolean
search using AND, NOT and NEAR
You will find a list of cases/statutes/legislations/other resources. You can filter judgements or other
resources using the tick or the only feature as well as using dates to filter.
You can also find cases through the section of a particular act.
There are multiple other ways to search on SCC like
1. Through Citation (You must know the full citation)
2. Through party name (You need to know the court and the party name)
For a detailed guide - Visit https://help.scconline.com/en/category/search-methods-7stn7f/ for a
more detailed guide
ANNEXURE-II (Manupatra)
Login through IP Login
Search through keywords on Manupatra using Manu search. You can also filter through courts
You can then find cases through excerpts
You can also find cases through case notes
Use this icon to print the pdf
For a more detailed guide on Manupatra, use
https://www.manupatrafast.com/default/OnlineManual.aspx
Annexure III (Lexis Advance)
Finding a case
Step 1: You can either write the case name in the big search bar outlined red or the quick find section.
Say I want to find Donoghue v Stevenson.
Step 2: Choose the jurisdiction. For the big search bar, click on the Indian flag with IN written below
and choose the jurisdiction of your case. For quick find, just choose International Snapshot View.
Step 3: Write just the name of the case, name of the case with the citation or just the citation. Then
search for it. Step 2 and 3 are below.
Step 4 : If you are searching generally, you will find multiple cases. Click on the case you are looking
for.
Step 5: Now you have the case, you can find the Lexis copy of the case. You can click on the
download symbol in the upper left-hand corner to download. If you want a true copy of the case,
you can click any of the citations of the case linked on the page. You may find a true copy for one of
the reporters. The picture below is for the All ER Reporter which does not have the true copy.
Step 6: The SC (HL) reporter has a true copy. You can see “Court Ready PDF” at the bottom of the
box to the right of the page. Click on it for the true copy and it will automatically get downloaded.
The true copy looks something like this:
Finding commentaries
If you know the commentary you are looking for:
Step 1: Say you are looking for Ramaiya’s commentary on the Companies Act. First choose the
jurisdiction. For Ramaiya, it is India. Also choose the category to be ‘analytical material.’
Step 2: Enter the name of the commentary. It will probably come up as recommendations.
Step 3: Choose the volume and the edition you want. It will open the index page.
Step 4: You can download the book by clicking on the download sign. You can also read it online
and navigate between the sections through this index. If I want to go to the discussion on section 3
of the Act and I know that it is in chapter II, I will expand chapter II and click on section 3.
Step 5: The page will open like this. You can still access the table of contents to the left to navigate
between chapters. You can also download this individual section by clicking on the download
symbol.
If you do not know the commentary you are looking for:
You may be asked to research on a proposition and you may want to look at some analytical material
on it without knowing which commentary to look for. Suppose we want to find some material on
mortgages in India. For that follow the following steps.
Step 1: Select the jurisdiction. Choose the content type to be analytical material. Enter your keyword
and search.
Step 2: You will find many responses. You will find the content type and the name of the publication
to the right of the answer. For example, in the picture below, the content type is annotated legislation
and the publication is Darashaw J Vakil’s commentary on Transfer of Property Act. A little below
in the page you can find Mulla on Transfer of Property Act.
Step 3: Say I want Mulla’s commentary. I will click on the option and it will open the chapter. I can
read the chapter here, download it, navigate to other chapters using the table of contents or view the
entire publication by clicking on the name of the publication hyperlinked.
Annexure IV (Lib-Gen)
Select the book that you want to access. For instance, ‘The Oxford Handbook of International
Criminal Law’
Step 1: Type the name of the book in the lib-gen search bar. Click on search
Step 2: You will find several books that match your search query. Select the one you wish to
download.
Step 3: You will find several download options available. Preferably, select the ‘Lib Gen & IPFS &
Tor’ option and then click on GET. Your file will be downloaded.
Annexure-V (Sci-Hub)
Step 1: This is an illustration for how DOI searches work. The DOI link for this article is
highlighted in blue. Copy the DOI of the article you wish to access.
Step 2: Copy the DOI and paste it on the search bar of Sci-Hub. If the article is uploaded on the
Sci-Hub database you will be able to access it. You can also download the article.
Annexure-VI Anna’s Archive
Step 1: Go to https://annas-archive.org/
You will encounter this home screen
The SciDB database works similar to Scihub and is limited to Academic papers. Enter the DOI and it will open
the paper (if available).
The Full database is the complete repository of all resources on Anna’s Archive. This repository includes links
from Zlib, libgen, SciHub etc and more.
Step 2: Enter the name of the book/source you are looking for. You can also, alternatively, add the DOI link.
However, that will most likely lead you to a SciDB link to download the content.
Step 3: Press search and You will see a list of sources
Verify whether the sources that appeared are the ones you were looking for. Sometimes Anna’s Archive might
show a different source than the one you looked for (This usually happens when the main source is not available
on the website)
Step 4: Click on the Source and Download
You will see a variety of links. Usually the smoothest way is to download through the Libgen link. IPFS gateways
also work but you might need to retry and downloads are slower.
Step 5 (Optional if you use the Libgen link): Select the Download option
Once you reach the LibGen link, you will again see different download options. Choose any - Cloudflare is the
fastest. As these websites include pirated content, sometimes downloading might glitch. In case that happens, just
retry a couple of times, try different links or go to one of the other websites mentioned in the guide.
