What Is a CNR Number in Indian Courts? A Complete Guide

April 18, 2026 — CasePilot Team

If you practise in an Indian court — or have ever tried to track a matter on the eCourts portal — you have run into the CNR number. A 16-digit alphanumeric code that most advocates treat as a technicality, the CNR is actually the single most important identifier for any case filed in a court participating in the National eCourts project. Lose the CNR, and you lose your fastest path to the case history, the next hearing date, the most recent order, and every other downstream workflow your practice depends on.

This guide covers what the CNR is, how it is generated, where to find it for a case you are handling, how it differs from the court's own filing number, and how to track many CNRs in bulk without logging in to eCourts every morning.

What "CNR" Actually Means

CNR stands for Case Number Record. It is a unique 16-character alphanumeric identifier assigned by India's eCourts Mission Mode Project to every case filed in a participating court — currently over 26,000 district and taluka courts, plus most High Courts that publish to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

The key property that makes the CNR useful: it stays with the case for life. When a matter is transferred to a different court, renumbered for internal filing purposes, or appealed to a higher bench, the CNR does not change. The filing number you know the matter by in the trial court will be different from the filing number used in the High Court on appeal — but the CNR is the thread that runs through the entire proceeding.

For advocates managing even a modest case list, this portability matters. The CNR lets you track a single matter from institution through final disposal, across any number of transfers or appeals, without having to re-learn a new case number at each stage.

How a CNR Is Generated

The 16-character CNR encodes four pieces of information in a fixed format:

1. State code (2 characters) — DL for Delhi, MH for Maharashtra, KA for Karnataka, and so on.
2. District / court code (2 characters) — identifies the specific court within the state.
3. Case type + sequential case number (10 characters) — internal to the court.
4. Year of filing (2 characters) — last two digits of the filing year.

For example, a CNR like DLHC01-000234-2024 would indicate a case filed in the Delhi High Court (code DLHC01), case number 000234, year 2024. The exact format varies slightly by court, but the structural idea — state + court + sequence + year — is consistent across participating courts.

The CNR is generated at the time of case registration — meaning the moment the court's case information system issues the filing number, it simultaneously issues the CNR. You do not need to apply for a CNR or request one separately; it is assigned automatically.

Where to Find the CNR for a Case You Are Handling

If you do not know the CNR for a matter you are already working on, there are several reliable ways to find it:

On the filing order sheet or case-registration receipt

When a case is registered, the court issues a filing receipt or order sheet that shows the case number, filing date, and — for any court computerized under the eCourts project — the CNR. This is the fastest lookup if the case is recent.

On any published order in the matter

Every order passed in a CNR-assigned case carries the CNR on its header. Pull any order from the case file, check the top, and you will find it.

By searching eCourts

The eCourts Services portal at services.ecourts.gov.in accepts search by party name, advocate name, or case number. Run the search for your client, locate the matter in the results, and the case details page shows the CNR prominently. This takes a minute or two for a case you know but whose CNR you have misplaced.

From your practice-management software

CasePilot auto-resolves the CNR when you add a case by court + case number, and stores it against the matter record. If you have ever added the case to CasePilot before, the CNR is on the case detail screen.

CNR vs Filing Number: Why Both Exist

A common point of confusion for newer advocates: why does a case have both a filing number AND a CNR, and when should you use which?

• The filing number is the court's internal case identifier. It changes when the case is renumbered (e.g. on transfer between benches of the same court, or on appeal to a higher forum). Each court maintains its own numbering.
• The CNR is the national identifier. It is assigned once at institution and does not change for the life of the case.

In practice: use the filing number when you are filing papers in the specific court (mention it on the memo of parties, on the vakalatnama, on subsequent applications). Use the CNR when you need to pull case history from eCourts, when you are tracking the case across multiple courts, or when you are using any practice-management software that syncs with eCourts.

For a deeper look at the differences, see Case Number vs CNR: What's the Difference?.

Tracking Multiple CNRs Without Manually Checking eCourts

If you handle more than five or six active matters, the manual process of logging in to eCourts every morning and checking each case one by one stops scaling. Advocates typically reach one of three failure modes:

1. Missed hearings, because a last-minute listing change was published after the morning check.
2. Stale case files, because an order was passed and downloaded to a desktop that the associate cannot find at 10pm.
3. Lost time on routine lookups, because the same 30-minute portal ritual plays out daily across however many cases you have.

The fix is automation. Instead of pulling case data, push it: give the CNR to a system that polls eCourts on your behalf, pushes notifications when something changes, and keeps orders downloaded and searchable in one place. That is the entire premise of CasePilot's eCourts integration — add the CNR once, never log in to eCourts again unless you want to double-check something.

A related, even more detailed walkthrough is How to Check Case Status on the eCourts Portal, which covers the manual process in depth for when you do need to look something up directly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the CNR the same as the CIS case number?

The CIS (Case Information System) case number and the CNR are related but not identical. The CIS is the court's internal case-management identifier; the CNR is the national-level unique identifier derived from CIS plus the court's state + district codes. For most practical purposes, advocates only need the CNR.

My case is older than the eCourts project — does it have a CNR?

Older cases that pre-date a court's computerization may not have a CNR assigned. If the court has since been computerized, legacy cases are often backfilled with CNRs — but not always. If your case does not show a CNR on eCourts, it likely has not been backfilled; tracking that matter will have to rely on the original filing number and manual cause-list monitoring.

Is the CNR case-sensitive?

The alphabetic characters in a CNR are conventionally uppercase, and eCourts search accepts both upper and lower case. When recording CNRs in your practice-management system, stick with uppercase for consistency.

What happens to the CNR if a case is transferred?

The CNR stays the same. If your matter is transferred from the District Court of Alipur to the District Court of Sealdah, the CNR does not change — though the case may be renumbered internally for the new court's records.

How long is a CNR valid?

The CNR is valid for the life of the case and remains valid after the case is disposed. Using the CNR on the eCourts portal after disposal still returns the full case history — useful when you are reviewing how a similar matter played out years later.

Next Up: Auto-Sync Every CNR You Add

Once you have the CNR for a matter, the next question is how to stay on top of it without repeatedly checking the portal. CasePilot's eCourts integration auto-syncs every CNR you add, pushes hearing reminders before every listed date, and downloads orders as they publish — so the CNR goes from "identifier you look up when you need it" to "identifier you assign once and never think about again."

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Disclaimer: This post is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. eCourts procedures and CNR assignment rules vary by court and evolve over time. Consult the specific court's documentation or a qualified advocate for matters requiring legal certainty. Content reviewed April 2026.