A judgment is the statement by a judge of the grounds on which a decree or order is based. Defined in Section 2(9) of the Code of Civil Procedure, the judgment is the reasoned opinion of the court, while the decree is the formal expression of the adjudication.
In practice, judgment and decree are often used interchangeably — especially by lay people — but the distinction matters procedurally. The judgment contains the reasons; the decree contains the operative order. For appellate purposes, the certified copy of the judgment (and the decree, where separately drawn) is typically required as an annexure.
Judgments in Indian courts vary dramatically in length and style: a bail-application judgment may run to 2 pages; a complex commercial-suit judgment can run to 200+ pages with extensive discussion of facts, statutory provisions, and precedents. Supreme Court judgments are typically detailed, often with separate opinions by multiple judges.
Reading a judgment effectively: most practitioners start with the operative paragraphs (usually at the end), skim the facts, then dive into the legal analysis for the specific point relevant to their work. Judgment indexing services like ManuPatra and SCC Online add editorial headnotes that distill the ratio; AI-assisted summaries from platforms like CasePilot do similar work on judgments that are not yet editorially curated.
The date of judgment is also when limitation for filing an appeal typically begins to run (with some exceptions for the period required to obtain the certified copy).