> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://vaquill.ai/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What points at this act > Inbound citations: provisions elsewhere in the corpus that name this act. **Cost: 2 credits.** A confident "nothing cites this" is the answer and is charged. 🔴 **Matched on the act's TITLE, not on an identifier**, because that is what the corpus stores. A citing document that wrote the title differently is missed, and the publisher's own line breaks make that measurable. Read `matchBasis` and treat the result as a floor rather than a complete set. A foundational act can be cited by thousands of provisions, so the answer is PAGED with `page` + `pageSize`, the same as the rest of this API. `total` is the number of distinct citing PROVISIONS across all pages, not the size of the page you were served (`returned`) and not the number of matching passages. One provision is stored as many passages: the Indian Penal Code matches 9,586 passages belonging to 1,367 distinct provisions, and `total` is the 1,367. `totalIsExact` goes false only if the corpus scan behind that count hits its ceiling, which no act in the corpus currently reaches. ## OpenAPI ````yaml https://api.vaquill.ai/in/openapi.json get /api/v1/in/acts/{act_id}/cited-by openapi: 3.1.0 info: title: Vaquill India API description: >- Public API for Indian primary law: Central and State Acts, the instruments of the principal regulators, and their individual sections. **Authentication**: Pass your API key via the `Authorization: Bearer vq_key_...` header. The same key works against the US API; the two share one credit balance. **Credits**: Each call costs API credits. See `GET /api/v1/api-credits/pricing` for the full pricing matrix. ## Coverage | Layer | Volume | |---|---| | Enactments (Central, State and UT) | 22,265 | | Individually addressable provisions | 1,098,577 | | Regulator instruments | roughly half the corpus | Regulators covered include SEBI, RBI, MCA, IRDAI, TRAI, DGFT, MOEFCC and CPCB. `sourceUrl` points at the publisher's own document where we hold a live one, and is `null` otherwise. India Code migrated hosts in August 2026 and re-minted its identifiers, so links into the old site no longer resolve; we return nothing rather than a link that 404s. `pdfUrl` and `textUrl` are served from our own mirror and are unaffected. ## Scope This document describes the **India** surface only. US statutes are a separate document at `/external/openapi.json`, so an MCP client configured here sees Indian tools and nothing else. version: 1.0.0 contact: name: Vaquill API Support url: https://www.vaquill.ai email: support@vaquill.ai license: name: Proprietary url: https://www.vaquill.ai/terms termsOfService: https://www.vaquill.ai/terms servers: - url: https://api.vaquill.ai description: Production security: - ApiKeyAuth: [] paths: /api/v1/in/acts/{act_id}/cited-by: get: tags: - Indian Acts and Legislation summary: What points at this act description: >- Inbound citations: provisions elsewhere in the corpus that name this act. **Cost: 2 credits.** A confident "nothing cites this" is the answer and is charged. 🔴 **Matched on the act's TITLE, not on an identifier**, because that is what the corpus stores. A citing document that wrote the title differently is missed, and the publisher's own line breaks make that measurable. Read `matchBasis` and treat the result as a floor rather than a complete set. A foundational act can be cited by thousands of provisions, so the answer is PAGED with `page` + `pageSize`, the same as the rest of this API. `total` is the number of distinct citing PROVISIONS across all pages, not the size of the page you were served (`returned`) and not the number of matching passages. One provision is stored as many passages: the Indian Penal Code matches 9,586 passages belonging to 1,367 distinct provisions, and `total` is the 1,367. `totalIsExact` goes false only if the corpus scan behind that count hits its ceiling, which no act in the corpus currently reaches. operationId: india_act_cited_by parameters: - name: act_id in: path required: true schema: type: string minLength: 1 maxLength: 200 pattern: ^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$ description: Act identifier, as returned by search, /list or /resolve. examples: - IND_state_17068 title: Act Id description: Act identifier, as returned by search, /list or /resolve. - name: page in: query required: false schema: type: integer minimum: 1 description: 1-based page number. examples: - 1 default: 1 title: Page description: 1-based page number. - name: pageSize in: query required: false schema: anyOf: - type: integer maximum: 100 minimum: 1 - type: 'null' description: Rows per page (1-100). Defaults to 25. examples: - 25 title: Pagesize description: Rows per page (1-100). Defaults to 25. - name: limit in: query required: false schema: anyOf: - type: integer maximum: 100 minimum: 1 - type: 'null' description: >- DEPRECATED alias for `pageSize`, kept working for clients written against the original shape. Send one or the other, not both. deprecated: true examples: - 25 title: Limit description: >- DEPRECATED alias for `pageSize`, kept working for clients written against the original shape. Send one or the other, not both. deprecated: true responses: '200': description: Successful Response content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ActCitedByResponse' example: actId: IND_state_17068 title: The Factories Act, 1948 citation: The Factories Act, 1948 citers: - actId: INC_597400 title: The Tamil Nadu Lifts and Escalators Rules,1997 citation: The Tamil Nadu Lifts and Escalators Rules,1997, s. 3 sectionNumber: '3' sectionTitle: >- Documents to be enclosed herewith along with renewal application: - actId: IND_state_12592 title: The C.G. SHOPS & ESTABLISHMENTS ACT, 1958 citation: The C.G. SHOPS & ESTABLISHMENTS ACT, 1958, s. 3 sectionNumber: '3' sectionTitle: >- Act not applicable to certain persons and establishment — (1) Nothing in this Act total: 884 totalIsExact: true returned: 3 page: 1 pageSize: 3 hasMore: true truncated: true matchBasis: publisher_title note: >- Edges are matched on the act's TITLE as the publisher wrote it, because that is what the corpus stores. A citing document that spelled the title differently is not found, and the publisher's own line breaks make this measurable: one act can appear as two dist… meta: processingTimeMs: 1390.7 creditsConsumed: 2 '401': description: Missing or invalid API key content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' '402': description: Insufficient credits content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' '403': description: Key lacks the research:read scope content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' '404': description: No such act or provision content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' '422': description: Unrecognised or conflicting parameter content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' '429': description: Rate limited content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' components: schemas: ActCitedByResponse: properties: actId: type: string title: Actid title: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Title citation: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Citation citers: items: $ref: '#/components/schemas/CitedByRow' type: array title: Citers total: type: integer title: Total description: >- Distinct citing PROVISIONS across all pages, not rows on this page (that is `returned`) and not matching passages. One provision can be stored as many passages: the Indian Penal Code matches 9,586 passages belonging to 1,367 distinct provisions, and this is the 1,367. totalIsExact: type: boolean title: Totalisexact description: >- False when the corpus scan behind `total` hit its ceiling, which makes `total` a floor rather than a count. True on every act in the corpus today: the ceiling sits above the largest citing set measured, the Companies Act, 2013 at 53,699 passages. returned: type: integer title: Returned description: Rows in `citers` on THIS page. page: type: integer title: Page description: 1-based page this response answers. pageSize: type: integer title: Pagesize description: Rows per page requested. hasMore: type: boolean title: Hasmore description: True when a further page of citing provisions exists. truncated: type: boolean title: Truncated description: >- DEPRECATED, kept so an existing client does not break. True when `hasMore` is true or `totalIsExact` is false. Read those two instead: this one field cannot tell 'there is a page 2' apart from 'we stopped counting'. matchBasis: type: string title: Matchbasis description: >- `publisher_title`: edges are matched on the act's title as the publisher wrote it, so treat the result as a floor. note: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Note meta: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Meta' type: object required: - actId - total - totalIsExact - returned - page - pageSize - hasMore - truncated - matchBasis - meta title: ActCitedByResponse ApiDetailError: properties: detail: type: string title: Detail description: >- Human-readable reason, safe to surface to an end user. Branch on the HTTP status rather than on this string: the wording is not part of the contract and may be reworded, but 401 (bad key), 402 (out of credits), 403 (missing scope), 404 (no such resource) and 429 (rate limited) are stable. examples: - Insufficient API credits. type: object required: - detail title: ApiDetailError description: |- Error envelope the API actually returns. All errors (401/402/403/404/422/429/5xx) come back as a single `detail` string (FastAPI default), e.g. `{"detail": "Insufficient API credits."}`. Documenting the real shape so client code can rely on it. CitedByRow: properties: actId: type: string title: Actid title: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Title citation: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Citation sectionNumber: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Sectionnumber sectionTitle: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Sectiontitle type: object required: - actId title: CitedByRow Meta: properties: processingTimeMs: type: number title: Processingtimems description: >- Server-side time for this request in milliseconds, excluding network transit. Not billed on. default: 0 examples: - 142.7 creditsConsumed: type: number title: Creditsconsumed description: >- Credits actually charged. Read this rather than assuming the list price: refunded work bills 0. default: 0 examples: - 2 type: object title: Meta securitySchemes: ApiKeyAuth: type: http scheme: bearer bearerFormat: vq_key_* description: >- API key issued from the developer dashboard. Pass as `Authorization: Bearer vq_key_...` ````