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From a research desk to a chamber — in less than a day
29–30 August 2026. First commit to a live CiteBench chamber: under sixteen hours.
Vineet Sharma · Originally on X
This is not a launch manifesto. It is a record of what shipped, in order, so a tweet does not have to lie.
Yesterday evening CiteBench (then still named NyayaSetu) did one job well: an advocate pasted facts, picked a forum and a side, and got a research memo — issues, doctrines, arguments both ways, Hindi or English.
That was the whole product. A desk. Sign in with Google, X, or a password. Search Indian Kanoon, LiveLaw, CaseMine, eSCR, and the Supreme Court site. Not legal advice. Verify the cites yourself.
The gap was obvious the moment the memo landed. A working lawyer does not live in a research pane. They live in what is listed tomorrow, what the last order actually said, and whether the case on the page is real.
So we kept building.
What “verified” means here
The first merge was not a new screen. It was a gate.
A precedent is verified only if its http(s) URL was actually retrieved, and only if the host is on a short allowlist. The model’s own verified: true is overwritten. javascript: links die. Invented names are stripped out of a draft before it hits the screen.
Court drafts — notice, reply, petition — do not search the web at all. They may cite only what the memo already proved. A legal proposition with no case is kept; a fake Invented v. Case is not.
That rule is the product. The chamber is furniture around it.
What exists this morning
| Last night | This morning |
|---|---|
| Paste facts → memo | Same desk, plus Notice / Reply / Petition from that memo |
| Citations the model claimed | Citations the search actually retrieved |
| One research page | Today, Diary, Matters, Research, Inbox |
| — | Paste an order; AI extracts directions; you confirm before the diary moves |
| — | Court directions and CiteBench suggestions stay different colours |
| — | Three-matter sample chamber, free, does not start the trial |
| — | 30 days on your own work, then ₹500 / month (card not live yet) |
| NyayaSetu | CiteBench |
The sample file is a Delhi commercial recovery, a bail, and a Rajasthan writ. Load it, click around, throw it away. Your own research is what starts the clock.
What we did not ship
- A bot that files on eCourts
- Cites “verified” by fetching Indian Kanoon HTML
- Mixing “you should apply for X” into “the court directed X”
- Saving notice/reply/petition into the database (still a first-cut on screen)
- Charging a card
Written statement from the memo is on a branch. It is not on main yet, so it is not in this story.
Why speed is the wrong headline
Sixteen hours is a curiosity. The useful sentence is: the memo, the listing, and the order now sit in one place, and the software refuses to flatter a fake judgment.
If you are an advocate: sign in, load the sample, then try your own facts. Check every date and every URL on the original record before you file.
If you are a builder: the interesting file is not the hero copy. It is stampPrecedents.
Not legal advice. Never was.
— CiteBench, 30 August 2026
First published on X on 30 Aug 2026.Read and reply there.