LiveSee Jagriq run on your own matters — 30-minute walkthrough with the team.Book a demo
Vidhi · verified legal research
Ask in plain English or your own language. Every citation resolves to a real judgment or statute — and opens to the exact passage. The one thing a general-purpose AI can’t give you.
The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881English
Is a Section 138 offence compoundable?
147. Offences to be compoundable.—
Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973,
every offence punishable under this Act shall be compoundable.
NI Act, 1881 · s. 147 · page 44opens here
Grounded in 7.94M judgments from the Supreme Court and all 25 High Courts, and India’s central statutes · AI-assisted, attorney review required.
The stakes
AI that invents case law isn’t a productivity risk. It’s a professional one.
In In Re: Use of AI & False Precedents, the Court set aside NCLT/NCLAT orders in which three of the six cited judgments did not exist, demanded “zero tolerance,” and asked the Bar Council to frame norms.
This is exactly what Vidhi is built to make impossible.
Ask anything
Research a point of law, pull a judgement headnote, check the section and the authority are still current, build a chronology — in any of 22 Indian languages, every answer sourced.
Ask in plain language and get the provision, not a paraphrase.
What is the limitation period for a Section 138 complaint?
One month from the date on which the cause of action arises under clause (c) of the proviso to Section 1381. A complaint filed after that period can still be taken on file if the complainant satisfies the court that there was sufficient cause for the delay2.
Why Vidhi
A general model gives you a fluent answer with a case that may not exist. Vidhi gives you the provision it came from.
“The Supreme Court in Suresh Menon v. Union of India (2019) 4 SCC 221 held that the notice requirement is mandatory…”
No source · this citation does not exist
The mandatory-notice holding is in Section 138, proviso (b), applied in Rajesh Kumar v. State (2019) 5 SCC 4211
Opens to para 14 of the actual judgment
| Capability | ChatGPT | Claude | Gemini | Vidhi |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CorpusTrained on India’s statutes & judgments | ChatGPT: No Indian legal corpus to answer from | Claude: No Indian legal corpus to answer from | Gemini: No Indian legal corpus to answer from | Vidhi: India’s statutes, Supreme Court and all 25 High Courts |
| CitationEvery citation resolves to a real document | ChatGPT: A string that looks like a citation | Claude: A string that looks like a citation | Gemini: A string that looks like a citation | Vidhi: A document that opens |
| PassageOpens the source, to the exact passage | ChatGPT: Nothing to point at | Claude: Nothing to point at | Gemini: Nothing to point at | Vidhi: The exact clause, highlighted, with the page |
| AuthorityFlags overruled / doubtful authority | ChatGPT: Silent on what happened to the authority since | Claude: Silent on what happened to the authority since | Gemini: Silent on what happened to the authority since | Vidhi: Flags overruled, doubted and superseded |
| UncertaintyTells you when the evidence is thin | ChatGPT: Answers anyway | Claude: Answers anyway | Gemini: Answers anyway | Vidhi: Says when the evidence is thin |
| Up to dateKnows the law as it stands today | ChatGPT: Stuck at the date its training stopped, often years ago | Claude: Stuck at the date its training stopped, often years ago | Gemini: Stuck at the date its training stopped, often years ago | Vidhi: New judgments and amendments added the day they come out |
…and every other general-purpose model. None are trained on India’s case law or can show you a source — which is how ChatGPT-fabricated citations reached the court record (Mata v. Avianca; Buckeye Trust).
§ The proof
Every citation opens to the exact passage in the real document — a Supreme Court order to its paragraph, a statute to its proviso. Not a link out; the actual holding, highlighted.
Section 142(2)(a) · page 41
(a) if the cheque is delivered for collection through an account, the branch of the bank where the payee or holder in due course, as the case may be, maintains the account, is situated; or
Act, section, clause and page matched.
Superseded by statute — the venue rule it laid down was replaced by Section 142(2) in 2015. Vidhi says so before you cite it.
What it stands on
Not a US database and not a general model — a corpus of Indian statutes, Supreme Court and High Court judgments, with the citation graph that connects them.
Vidhi says what it grounded an answer on, and says so when the evidence is thin or the point is unsettled.
No. Every citation shown in an answer resolves to a real judgment or statute in our corpus — if it can't be resolved to a source, it doesn't appear as a citation. And you can open the source document for any citation, at the exact passage.
India's central statutes, Supreme Court judgments and all 25 High Courts natively — 7.94M judgments and 332K statute provisions, plus the tribunals, commissions and district benches in the wider forum taxonomy. Vidhi tells you what it grounded an answer on, and when the evidence is thin.
General-purpose models have no Indian legal corpus and can't show you a source — which is exactly how advocates have ended up citing cases that don't exist (Mata v. Avianca; the Buckeye Trust order recalled by the ITAT). Vidhi answers only from real, retrievable Indian law and opens the document behind every citation.
Yes. Every authority carries its later treatment — followed, affirmed, distinguished, doubted, overruled, or superseded by statute — weighted by bench strength, so a single-judge line can't quietly disrupt a Constitution Bench. Where Parliament has displaced a holding, the status says so before you cite it.
No. Vidhi is AI-assisted and attorney review is required. Its job is to make that review take seconds instead of hours — by making every citation verifiable to its source.
Yes — chronology building from facts and issues is one of Vidhi's core research capabilities, so you can turn a matter's documents into an ordered timeline instead of assembling one by hand from the file.
Yes — open any statute or judgment and ask it questions grounded in that document ("what changed in the 2018 amendment," "what's the ratio here"), cited to the section or paragraph. It's the same verified-citation engine, scoped to one document.
Open a chat, and check the source of every line it gives you.