Authority, precedent, statutory provision
Three terms kept apart. An authority is a judicial decision cited for a proposition. A precedent is a judicial decision that binds a later court. A statutory provision is enacted text. A statute is never called an authority, and a decision is not a precedent merely because it is cited.
When this decides something for you
A language model, asked for "authorities" on a point, will return a mixture: a section of an Act, a Supreme Court judgment, a High Court decision from another State, a passage from a commentary. It will present them in one list, in one confident tone. A professional who cannot sort that list in seconds cannot verify it, because each kind is verified against a different source and each carries a different weight before a court. The three terms on this page are the sorting rule.
The question
What is the difference between the things a machine returns when it is asked what the law is, and why does the difference decide how each is checked?
The premise
Law comes in two forms: enacted text and decided cases. Enacted text is authoritative because it was enacted; a decided case is authoritative because a court decided it, and binding only if a rule of precedent makes it so. A method that treats the two forms alike will check them alike, and that is how a non-existent judgment passes as a section, or a section is cited as if a court had held it.
How it works
Authority. A judicial decision cited in support of a proposition. The word describes the use, not the rank: a Supreme Court judgment and a single-judge order of a High Court are both authorities when cited. Authorities have sub-types by their role in the argument: the controlling authority, which the court must follow; the persuasive authority, which it may; and the lead authority, which the advocate puts first. An authority is verified against the court's own copy of the decision, and its use is verified against its ratio: what the court actually held, on which facts, at which paragraph.
Precedent. A judicial decision that binds a later court under the rule of stare decisis: a decision of the Supreme Court binds every court in India under Article 141 of the Constitution; a decision of a larger Bench of a High Court binds a smaller one of the same court. Every precedent is an authority when cited; most authorities are not precedents for the court hearing the matter. The distinction decides what the court is being asked to do: follow, or be persuaded.
Statutory provision. The text of enacted law: an article, a section, a rule, a notification, a regulation. It is verified against the official gazette or the official consolidated text, at the date relevant to the matter, because provisions are amended and the model's copy may be stale. A statutory provision is never called an authority. A submission that says "the authorities are Section 73 and the judgment in X" has mixed two kinds of thing, and a reader who knows the difference will notice.
Three habits follow. Cite a decision on first mention with its full identification: case name, citation (neutral citation, and the report where one exists), court, date, and the proposition it is cited for; shorthand only after that. Cite the Supreme Court before the High Court, and give paragraph numbers where they exist. And keep the three words to their meanings in every document, because the reader's confidence in the citations rests partly on the writer's evident grasp of what each one is.
One case
The distinction is applied rather than decided in any single case, but the cost of losing it is documented. In Gummadi Usha Rani v. Sure Mallikarjuna Rao, SLP(C) No.7575 of 2026, Supreme Court of India, order dated 27 February 2026, the trial court's order relied on four decisions cited in the form of reported Supreme Court authorities, each with a volume and page in the Supreme Court Cases, and none existing. The form of a citation is what a machine reproduces most fluently, because the form is a pattern. A professional who verifies the form has verified nothing; the authority is verified only against the court's copy of the decision the citation claims to identify.
The rule
An authority is a decision cited; a precedent is a decision that binds; a statutory provision is enacted text. Each is verified against its own primary source, and none is called by the other's name.
Not to be confused with
"Authority" in ordinary usage means anything relied on, including textbooks, commentaries and reports. In this library, and in every document written under the Standard, it means a judicial decision and nothing else. A commentary is a secondary source; a law report's headnote is a locator; neither is an authority, and neither is cited as one.
Provenance and method.
Where this was published
- Shivam Shukla
- AI for Indian Advocates: The Practitioner's Standard for Supervised Intelligence (2026)
- glossary and Part III
- The Field Guide (forthcoming)
- Section A and the Quick-Reference Card
Changelog
- 2026-09-25, version 1. First published.