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GET
Is this act still law, and who says so

Authorizations

Authorization
string
header
required

API key issued from the developer dashboard. Pass as Authorization: Bearer vq_key_... (preferred).

Headers

Idempotency-Key
string | null

Optional. 16 to 255 visible ASCII characters (a UUIDv4 is ideal). A retry with the same key and the same request replays the original 2xx response for 24 hours without charging again. The same key with a different request is rejected. Scope is the API key, method, path and body.

Required string length: 16 - 255
Pattern: ^[\x21-\x7e]+$
Example:

"3f9c2a1e-7b44-4d0a-9c1e-5a6b7c8d9e0f"

Path Parameters

act_id
string
required

Act identifier, as returned by /acts/search, /acts/list or /acts/resolve, e.g. IND_central_20062 (the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023). Surrounding whitespace, quotes, backticks, invisible characters, a trailing period and double percent-encoding are removed when the id as sent matches nothing; the response then carries resolvedFrom.

An act NAME or citation (Indian Penal Code, IPC, The Companies Act, 2013) is not resolved here. It returns 404 with reason: "act_name_or_citation" and suggestedRequest, the call that finds the id. A misspelt id returns 404 with the real ids in didYouMean.

Required string length: 1 - 200
Pattern: ^[^/\\\x00-\x1f]+$
Example:

"IND_state_20326"

Response

Successful Response

actId
string
required
citation
Citation · object
required

How to cite the thing this response is about.

Built from the publisher's own title, so where that title carries a defect so does the citation: some titles end in a period, which reads as ... Act., s. 3, and some carry no year at all. Those are recorded defects rather than reasons to withhold the field. GET /acts/coverage publishes how many served acts carry a citation, as depth.actsWithCitation.

servedStatus
string
required

served or retired. OUR word about whether this API answers for it.

provenance
Provenance · object
required
meta
Meta · object
required
title
string | null
goodLawStatus
string
default:unknown

Our DERIVED verdict: good_law, not_good_law or unknown. Conservative by construction -- an unverified repeal claim maps to unknown, NEVER to not_good_law, because we do not check whether a repealing instrument was brought into force and at least one repeal on this record involves an Act that never commenced. One field to filter on; the three raw fields below remain if you want to judge it yourself.

Example:

"good_law"

goodLawReason
string
default:""

Why the verdict above is what it is. Always present.

publisherStatus
string | null

act_status exactly as the publisher records it. Their word, not our verdict.

isSubordinate
boolean | null
delegationType
string | null
parentActName
string | null
commencementInfo
string | null
territorialExtent
string | null
enactmentDate
string | null

The date the act was enacted, as YYYY-MM-DD, or null when the stored value is not a date we can state without guessing. 🔴 This is NOT the year in the act's short title: 'The Biswa Bangla Biswabidyalay Act, 2017' was enacted 2018-01-09, and on a subordinate instrument year is often the PARENT act's year. Use year for the title year and this field for the date.

Example:

"2018-01-09"

enactmentDateRaw
string | null

What the publisher stored, present only when it differs from enactmentDate. When enactmentDate is null this carries the reason it is null, by showing you the value: a bare year ('1963'), an era year ('15-Oct-1349', from an act titled in the Fasli calendar), or a corrupt one ('0032-03-05').

Example:

"9-Mar-2005"

dateOfAssent
string | null

The date of assent as YYYY-MM-DD, or null when the stored value is not a date. Some records store an act NUMBER here ('15 of 1992'); those return null with the value in dateOfAssentRaw.

Example:

"1952-09-01"

dateOfAssentRaw
string | null

What the publisher stored, when it differs from dateOfAssent.

Example:

"15 of 1992"

lastAmendedYear
integer | null
repeals
string[] | null

Acts this one repeals, as the publisher names them. The inverse of repealClaim, and subject to the same caveat: it is their record, and we do not verify commencement.

supersededBy
string | null

A later consolidation that replaced this version, where one is recorded.

subordinateCount
integer | null

Subordinate instruments the publisher records under this act.

repealClaim
RepealClaim · object | null

The publisher's claim about repeal, with our caveat attached.

Never flattened into a verdict. India Code lists the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 as repealed by Act 37 of 2020, the Industrial Relations Code, which has never been brought into force. Serving that as flatly "repealed" would be wrong.

retirement
Retirement · object | null
currencyNote
string | null
resolvedFrom
IdentifierResolution · object | null

How your act_id or section number was matched, when it did not match exactly as sent. Null when it did.