---
language:
  - en
  - hi
  - mr
license: apache-2.0
pretty_name: IndianLegal-QA
tags:
  - question-answering
  - legal
  - indian-law
  - nlp
  - multilingual
  - indian-constitution
  - ipc
  - crpc
  - customs
  - tariff
configs:
  - config_name: default
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: question_answers.csv
---

# IndianLegal-QA

A question-and-answer dataset derived from Indian legal and government documents,
covering the Constitution of India, the Indian Penal Code, criminal and civil
procedural law, customs and tariff classifications, and numerous central and
state acts. The dataset is suitable for building, fine-tuning, and evaluating
retrieval and question-answering systems over Indian legal text.

This dataset is also hosted on GitHub at `Sakib-Dalal/IndianLegal-QA`.

## Overview

Each record is a paired question and answer extracted from an Indian legal source
document. The questions ask factual questions about provisions, definitions,
classifications, and procedures found in the source material, and the answers
provide the corresponding textual response. Records use a simple two-field schema
(`question`, `answer`).

## Statistics

| Property             | Value                              |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------- |
| Number of pairs      | 120,640                            |
| Fields per record    | `question`, `answer`               |
| Languages            | English, Hindi, Marathi            |
| Multilingual pairs   | ~23,630 (Devanagari script)        |
| Formats              | CSV, JSONL, plain text             |
| License              | Apache-2.0                         |

## Data format

The dataset is provided as `question_answers.csv` (comma-separated pairs, one per
row). The same content is also distributed on GitHub in `question_answers.jsonl`
and `question_answers.txt`. Each example has two string fields:

| Field      | Description                         |
| ---------- | ---------------------------------- |
| `question` | The question about a legal provision |
| `answer`   | The corresponding answer            |

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("Sakib-Dalal/IndianLegal-QA")
print(ds["train"])
print(ds["train"][0])
```

For local use, the CSV can be read with pandas:

```python
import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv("question_answers.csv")
```

## Domain coverage

The pairs draw from a wide range of Indian legal sources. Approximate coverage by
topic:

| Domain                      | Indicative count |
| -------------------------- | ---------------- |
| Acts (central & state)      | ~25,550          |
| Sections of enactments      | ~13,916          |
| Schedules                   | ~2,155           |
| Articles of the Constitution| ~1,552           |
| Constitutional provisions   | ~983             |
| Customs & tariff headings   | ~550             |
| Indian Penal Code (IPC)     | ~88              |
| Criminal Procedure Code      | ~22              |

The dataset spans the Constitution of India, IPC and CrPC, customs and tariff
classification headings, civil and criminal procedure, and a broad set of central
and state acts. A number of records are provided in Hindi and Marathi, making the
dataset useful for multilingual legal NLP.

## Example

```text
Q: What is described as the flexibility of the Constitution?
A: Its flexibility lies in its amendments.
```

## License

This dataset is released under the Apache License 2.0.

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{dalal2026indianlegalqa,
  title   = {IndianLegal-QA},
  author  = {Dalal, Sakib},
  year    = {2026},
  repo    = {https://github.com/Sakib-Dalal/IndianLegal-QA},
  url     = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/Sakib-Dalal/IndianLegal-QA},
}
```