eCourts Case Scraper

What this Actor does

This Actor looks up Indian court cases on the official eCourts Services website using each case's 16-character CNR. It returns structured case details when eCourts provides a verifiable case record.

Use it to review case status, registration details, parties and advocates, acts, FIR details, hearing history, and order metadata. The Actor follows eCourts' browser lookup form and requires a CAPTCHA solver key configured as a protected Actor secret.

Start a run

1. In the Actor settings, add CAPTCHA_API_KEY as a protected secret or environment variable. Do not put the key in Actor input.
2. Open the Input tab and enter one or more CNRs. Each value has four letters followed by twelve digits.
3. Adjust retry or proxy settings if needed. Apify residential Proxy is enabled by default.
4. Click Start. When the run finishes, open Case Records for saved cases and Output summary for the run status.

Input

caseNos is required. All other input fields are optional. The Actor accepts only the fields listed here.

CNR lookup

Field	Type	Required?	Default	What it does
caseNos	Array of strings	Required	None	CNRs to look up. Each item must match four letters followed by twelve digits. Enter 1 to 100 values. Repeated CNRs are looked up once.

Simple one-case input:

{
    "caseNos": ["KARC010037582023"]
}

Retry and proxy settings

Field	Type	Required?	Default	Bounds or choices	What it does
maxCaptchaRetries	Integer	Optional	3	1–5	CAPTCHA solver attempts in each browser session.
maxSessionAttempts	Integer	Optional	30	1–30	Fresh browser and proxy sessions attempted for each unique CNR.
proxyCountryFallbacks	Array of strings	Optional	["GB", "US", "IN"]	1–5 unique codes; two letters, optionally followed by _ and two more letters	Countries tried in order when Apify Proxy is used. The list cycles if more sessions are needed.
proxyConfiguration	Object	Optional	{"useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]}	Only the nested fields below are accepted	Selects Apify Proxy or custom proxy URLs.

An example with fewer retries and a custom country order:

{
    "caseNos": ["KARC010037582023", "KABC010006152020"],
    "maxCaptchaRetries": 2,
    "maxSessionAttempts": 8,
    "proxyCountryFallbacks": ["IN", "GB"]
}

proxyConfiguration fields

Field	Type	Required?	Default	Bounds or choices	What it does
proxyConfiguration.useApifyProxy	Boolean	Optional	true	true or false	Uses Apify Proxy when custom proxy URLs are not supplied. Turning it off without custom URLs uses a direct connection.
proxyConfiguration.apifyProxyGroups	Array of strings	Optional	["RESIDENTIAL"]	No item-count bound	Proxy groups used when Apify Proxy is enabled.
proxyConfiguration.proxyUrls	Array of strings	Optional	None	No item-count bound	Custom proxy URLs. Country rotation is not applied to custom URLs. Keep any credentials in private settings, not shared input examples.

For example, this disables Apify Proxy and uses a direct connection:

{
    "caseNos": ["KARC010037582023"],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": false
    }
}

The Actor removes repeated CNRs after normalizing their letter case. A successful case lookup can take multiple CAPTCHA attempts and fresh sessions, so larger batches or retry limits can take longer and use more proxy and solver traffic.

Case records

The dataset contains verified case details only. An unsuccessful lookup, an invalid input, or an unparseable response does not create a diagnostic row. A CNR for which eCourts reports no case also has no dataset row. The run log contains failure details.

The example below is illustrative documentation data, not a verified live result. Optional fields can be absent when eCourts does not return them.

Details come from the returned case page. Order fields contain the displayed order metadata; the Actor does not download or extract PDF contents. Empty values are omitted. An act entry needs an act name, a hearing-history entry needs a judge, and an order entry needs an order number; incomplete entries are omitted while the valid case details are kept.

Hearing history contains the dates and purposes shown in the case table. The Actor does not open the separate hearing-business pages or resolve PDF document links, so it does not return the detailed proceedings text or order document URLs from those views.

{
    "case_no": "KARC010037582023",
    "cnr": "KARC010037582023",
    "courtName": "District and Sessions Court, Bengaluru",
    "basicDetails": {
        "caseType": "CIVIL SUIT",
        "filingNumber": "1234/2023",
        "filingDate": "15-01-2023",
        "cnrNumber": "KARC010037582023"
    },
    "caseStatus": {
        "firstHearingDate": "20-01-2023",
        "nextHearingDate": "10-10-2024",
        "stageOfCase": "Evidence",
        "courtNumberAndJudge": "Court Room 3, Principal Judge"
    },
    "petitionerAdvocate": ["Ramesh Kumar", "Advocate - S. Sharma"],
    "respondentAdvocate": ["State of Karnataka"],
    "acts": [
        {
            "act": "Code of Civil Procedure",
            "section": "Order VII Rule 1"
        }
    ],
    "firDetails": {
        "policeStation": "Central Police Station",
        "firNumber": "56/2022"
    },
    "caseHistory": [
        {
            "judge": "Principal Judge",
            "businessOnDate": "10-01-2023",
            "hearingDate": "20-01-2023",
            "purpose": "Hearing"
        }
    ],
    "interimOrders": [
        {
            "orderNumber": "1",
            "orderDate": "20-01-2023",
            "orderType": "Notice issued"
        }
    ],
    "finalOrders": [
        {
            "orderNumber": "2",
            "orderDate": "10-10-2024",
            "orderType": "Final order"
        }
    ]
}

Field	Type	Required?	Meaning
case_no	String	Required	Normalized CNR, retained as a case-number alias.
cnr	String	Required	CNR used for the lookup.
courtName	String	Optional	Court heading from the case page.
basicDetails	Object of strings	Optional	Registration details such as case type, filing number, and dates. Keys depend on the eCourts page.
caseStatus	Object of strings	Optional	Current status and hearing details. Keys depend on the eCourts page.
petitionerAdvocate	Array of strings	Optional	Petitioner and advocate entries.
respondentAdvocate	Array of strings	Optional	Respondent and advocate entries.
acts	Array of objects	Optional	Acts and sections. Each object has act and may include section.
firDetails	Object of strings	Optional	FIR information, when present. Keys depend on the eCourts page.
caseHistory	Array of objects	Optional	Hearing history with judge and optional businessOnDate, hearingDate, and purpose.
interimOrders	Array of objects	Optional	Interim orders with orderNumber and optional orderDate and orderType.
finalOrders	Array of objects	Optional	Final orders with orderNumber and optional orderDate and orderType.

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Run status and output summary

The Actor counts only verified case records whose dataset writes completed. A run is SUCCEEDED when at least one case record was saved. If a later lookup or dataset write fails after cases were saved, the run can still succeed with isPartial: true. If no real case records were saved, the run is FAILED; diagnostic-only output never counts as a result.

The Output summary link opens the OUTPUT_SUMMARY record from the run's default Key-value store. It contains exactly these fields:

Field	Type	Required?	Meaning
status	String	Required	SUCCEEDED when at least one case record was saved; otherwise FAILED.
itemsStored	Nonnegative integer	Required	Number of verified case records whose dataset writes completed.
isPartial	Boolean	Required	true when collection was interrupted or a lookup or write failed after at least one record was saved.

Completed run:

{
    "status": "SUCCEEDED",
    "itemsStored": 2,
    "isPartial": false
}

Run with limited results:

{
    "status": "SUCCEEDED",
    "itemsStored": 1,
    "isPartial": true
}

Run with no saved case records:

{
    "status": "FAILED",
    "itemsStored": 0,
    "isPartial": false
}

Access, cost, and support

eCourts may reject automated requests, require CAPTCHA retries, rate-limit traffic, or return incomplete case pages. A failure to access or verify a case is reported in the run log, not as a dataset record. Use the service only in line with eCourts terms and applicable privacy laws.

Runs can use Apify browser compute, Apify Proxy traffic, and the separately configured CAPTCHA solver. Residential proxy use and CAPTCHA solver requests may incur charges under your accounts; prices depend on your plans and usage.

For help, use the Actor's Issues tab and include sanitized run-log details. Never include proxy credentials, CAPTCHA keys, or CAPTCHA values.

W3Crawler CAPTCHA configuration

Search uses https://api.w3crawler.com/api/captcha/solve with model bc3f0628-29ba-4555-9c27-ff26b4fdc179 (ECourts India Captcha). The dedicated key owned by admin@w3crawler.com is provided through the encrypted CAPTCHA_API_KEY Actor environment variable. It is not an input field and is never stored in source, logs, or dataset output. PNG, JPEG and WebP uploads retain their actual image format.

The key has no expiry or lifetime usage quota; the account has unlimited wallet credits. General CAPTCHA service request throttling still applies. Credentials or billing failures stop the search; explicit invalid predictions can obtain a fresh image within the configured attempt limit. Keep the key private and do not include it in scheduled-task input.

Dataset charge limit

Apify may stop storing new dataset rows when the run's maximum total charge is reached. The Actor counts only stored rows, stops further dataset writes, and reports isPartial: true when that happens. A source result count is not a saved-record count. Check OUTPUT_SUMMARY and the dataset for the final stored count.