Tata Trusts launched the India Justice Report (IJR) in 2019 to assess states’ performance in terms of justice delivery by considering all four pillars. The third version of the study, launched on April 4, 2023, by representatives from numerous civil society organisations, shares statistics on various parameters such as vacancies, budgetary allocations, infrastructure, human resources, legal aid, conditions in prisons, functioning Police, and the State Human Rights Commission.

Former Chief Justice of India UU Lalit while writing a foreword in the latest IJR states: “One of the attributes of the report is that it consciously abjures making judgments about performance or even about why chronic frailties and easy to repair elements remain unaddressed over decades. It lets the time series data—such as the slow pace of inclusion of women and traditionally discriminated segments of society to find a place within the system—speak for itself. But the truth of its finding compels early measures to repair.” 

Maja Daruwala, chief editor of IJR, said India is committed to “promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, providing access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels” under its international commitments under Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The deadline is set for 2030.

Among the states, Karnataka has secured the number one position in the justice delivery system in IJR 2022, followed by Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Sikkim led the list of seven minor states, followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.

The report said that Maharashtra moved from the top position in both IJR 2019 and IJR 2020 to the 11th position this time. Punjab slid eight places, from 4th to 12th. Rajasthan tumbled five places to 15th, and Goa fell from 3rd to last among small states. While Tamil Nadu and Telangana stayed 2nd and 3rd among major and mid-sized states, respectively, Uttar Pradesh fell to the bottom of the table for the third time in a row.

Nationally, there have been some persistent lacunae, such as prison occupancy, which is now over 130%; women’s vacancies in the police force, which are still at 11.75%; 30% vacancies among High Courts; police officers; and legal aid clinics, which are reduced by 44%, which can pose a serious threat to the country. The total value of settlements by the National Lok Adalats between 2021 and 2022 is Rs 7,322 crore.

Based on the latest United Nations data, the current population of India stands at 1,41,731,132, and going by IJR, we have 20,076 judges with about 22% of sanctioned posts vacant. India is also dealing with a chronic shortage of police officers, prison guards, legal aid workers, and judges. The vacancy rate for High Court judges is 30%, 22% for subordinate court judges, and 26% for High Court personnel. As of December 2022, the total number of sanctioned judges was 1,108, whereas the High Courts were functioning with only 778 judges. In Imtiyaz Ahmad vs State of UP, the Supreme Court asked the Law Commission to give recommendations about the basis on which Judge strength should be increased to tackle the accumulating backlog. In 2016, National Court Management Systems proposed an interim model based on the unit system as a method to calculate judge strength.

When compared to the sanctioned strength, India has 19 judges per million people as of December 2022, with a backlog of 4.8 crore cases. As early as 1987, the Law Commission hoped for 50 judges per million people within a decade while recommending the judge-to-population ratio’ method. If we talk about the police force, it is seen that about 29% of the officer positions are vacant, whereas the number of police constables is at 22%. The police to population ratio is 152.8 per lakh. 

Except for the High Courts of Sikkim and Gauhati and the district courts of Chandigarh, no court has a complete complement of judges. There is one High Court judge for every 17.7 lakh persons and one subordinate court judge for every 71,000 people. While the Punjab and Haryana High Courts have one judge for every 9.3 lakh people, the Patna High Court has one for every 36.7 lakh people. At the High Court level, Uttar Pradesh has the longest average pendency; cases are waiting for an average of 11.34 years, while West Bengal has a pendency of 9.9 years. Tripura has the shortest average High Court pendency (1 year), Sikkim (1.9 years), and Meghalaya (2.1 years). 

According to IJR, some Indian states have cut openings, such as Telangana, which dropped police jobs from 40% to 26%, and Madhya Pradesh, which reduced officer posts from 49% to 21%. 

Only Kerala, out of the 18 big and mid-sized states, could attain case clearance rates of 100% or above at both the High Court and subordinate court levels.

Prison population has been a perennial problem in India. IJR says approximately 77% are awaiting completion of an investigation or trial. India has only 658 medical officers for its over 5,54,000 prison inmates. The average comes to one doctor for 842 inmates. The prison population has risen steadily from 4.81 lakh in 2019 to 4.89 lakh in 2020 and 5.54 lakh in 2021. Haryana, for example, has the largest proportion of overcrowded prisons among the 18 major and mid-sized states. In Tamil Nadu, 15 of the total 139 jails are overcrowded by more than 100%, and two are overcrowded by more than 150%. Among the small states, four of Meghalaya’s five prisons are overcrowded, followed by those in Himachal Pradesh and Goa, which are running beyond 100% capacity. Therefore, more than half of the prisons in 23 states and UTs are overcrowded.

According to IJR, except for Delhi and UT Chandigarh, no state/UT devotes more than 1% of its total annual expenditure to the judiciary.

In compliance with the Supreme Court judgment in Paramvir Singh Saini vs Baljit Singh & ors., 2020, wherein the Court directed all states and UTs to install CCTV cameras in all police stations and offices of investigation agencies such as the CBI, ED, NIA, NCB, DRI, and any agency that conducts investigations and has the power to arrest, Arunachal Pradesh is found to be the only state having CCTV in all 24 police stations. 

IJR also emphasises the digital age, where technology is the key element to efficiently putting more and more data into the public domain. The Covid-19 outbreak and the shutdown of 2020 and 2021 caused significant disruptions to India’s court systems. Reduced access to justice at all levels resulted in fewer filings and a significant increase in existing backlogs. On the upside, the pandemic pushed the judiciary to use technology.

As Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said in February: “I am deeply distressed by this attitude… All the money which we have spent, they are just disbanding the infrastructure we have created for virtual hearing… You as Chief Justice of a High Court may or may not take interest in technology, you may understand nothing about it, but you are duty bound to spend the public funds made available by the Government of India to foster the mission to access justice… Sorry, technology is not something for the pandemic. Technology is here to stay for the future, forever.”

It is surprising to note that not a single state in the country meets the criterion of including women in their reserved quota. Despite having doubled in the last decade, women make up only 11.75% of the police force. Women make up only 13% of High Court judges and 35% of subordinate court judges. They account for 13% of jail personnel. However, the proportion of women in the subordinate judiciary already exceeds 33% nationally, which is a great step in the right direction. It is alarming to learn that one out of every ten women work in one of the four pillars of the legal system. 

The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued advisories to state governments to increase the number of women police to 33% of the total strength, with at least three women sub-inspectors and 10 women constables. Andhra Pradesh has 547 women police officers, 3,172 constables and 15,580 women inducted as “Mahila Police”. This has dramatically increased the proportion of women in overall police, from 5.8% in January 2020 to 21.8% in January 2022. However, whether the “Mahila Police” contingent is police or village-level workers at the mandal level is disputed and controversial.

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur while commenting on the IJR states: “The third IJR shows that states are making a substantive improvement over the last two ones in terms of adding new dimensions on diversity, training and infrastructure. Some states have dramatically improved their performance, but there is a lot that needs to be done overall. So far as the police is concerned there does appear to be a shortage of women officers in police. Legal aid is doing better, but still a lot of people need to be provided quality free legal aid, we need to increase the confidence that people have in our services.”

Constitutional equality mandates all states to reserve caste quotas. The aspiration behind the standard is to repair the gulf in representation of consistently under-represented groups in all spheres. No state met all three quotas in the judiciary at the subordinate/district court level. Only Gujarat and Chhattisgarh fulfilled their SC quotas. Arunachal Pradesh, Telangana and Uttarakhand all filled their ST quotas. OBC quotas were met by Kerala, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Telangana. The state of Karnataka remains the only state to meet its quota for SC, ST and OBC positions both among police officers and constabulary. 

The IJR 2022 includes two new indicators on budgets and the presence of front offices in District Legal Services Authorities (DLSAs) and finds significant shifts in positions in both large and small states since 2020, owing primarily to improvements in budget utilisation, Lok Adalat case dispositions, and gender diversity. Legal assistance and support are largely provided by empanelled lawyers, with 50,316 available in 36 states/UTs, as of June 2022, to provide free legal aid to anyone in need. NALSA and states both contribute funds to provide free legal help which are used for activities such as Lok Adalats, mediation, training programmes, and honoraria for lawyers, paralegals, mediators, and judges presiding over Lok Adalats, whereas state contributions are used primarily for infrastructure, personnel, and administrative expenses. 

In 2021-22, NALSA’s disbursement to states grew by 46% to Rs 144.3 crore. According to NALSA, between April 2021 and March 2022, 11.9 lakh people visited such clinics, with 7.3 lakh obtaining some form of assistance. This is the highest number of visits to these clinics since 2017-18, when only 6.9 lakh people attended, with 5.6 lakh receiving some form of assistance. In 2020-21, the budget for protection of human rights was Rs 105 crore. Except for Punjab, all SHRCs had chairpersons in place as of 2022 whereas Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Manipur were operating under acting chairs, while one out of every two members was missing in six states. Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, and Jharkhand did not have any representatives. 

Former Chief Justice of India UU Lalit has urged all agencies involved in the justice delivery system to take heed of IJR’s findings and insights as it is a testament to our democratic ways of participatory functioning and must be welcomed as contributions of active citizens to their own government. 

—By Ritika Gaur and India Legal Bureau

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