The CNR Number (Case Number Record) is a unique 16-digit alphanumeric identifier assigned by India's eCourts system to every case filed in a district, taluka, or High Court that participates in the eCourts national computerization project. Once issued, the CNR stays with the case permanently — even if the matter is transferred between courts, appealed to a higher bench, or re-numbered for internal filing purposes.
The format encodes the court of origin (the first four characters are the state and district code), followed by a sequential case number and the year of filing. Because the CNR is portable across courts, it is the most reliable way to track a single proceeding from filing through final disposal — a filing number in the original court will change on appeal, but the CNR will not.
For advocates, the CNR is the single piece of information that unlocks every downstream workflow: case-status lookups on the eCourts portal, cause list matching, order and judgment downloads, and integration with practice management software like CasePilot. Clients typically do not know their CNR by heart, but it can be looked up by party name, case number, or advocate name on the public eCourts portal.