According to the India Justice Report (IJR) 2022, the State of Karnataka emerged at the top among the 18 large and mid-sized States with populations of over one crore.
About India Justice Report
- The India Justice Report (IJR) is an initiative of Tata Trusts in collaboration with a group of sectoral experts — Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, Tata Institute of Social Sciences – Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
- This is to develop a report that would measure the structural capacity of state-based instrumentalities of the justice system against their own declared mandates with a view to pinpointing areas that lend themselves to immediate solutions.
- In a unique initiative, the India Justice Report ranks individual Indian states in relation to their capacity to deliver access to justice.
- The first ever ranking was published in November 2019.
India Justice Report Ranking
- The states are divided in 18 large and medium sized states with a population of over 1 crore and 7 small states.
- It assesses the capacity of 4 core pillars of the justice system: Police, Prisons, Judiciary and Legal aid across all 36 states and UTs
- Each pillar was analyzed through the prism of budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure and trends against the state’s own declared standards and benchmarks.
- The IJR 2022 also separately assesses the capacity of the 25 State Human Rights Commissions in the country
India Justice Report Details
- Out of the 18 large and medium-sized states having a population of over 1 crore each, Karnataka ranked first in “justice delivery” followed by Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh, respectively.
- UP is at the lowest rank (18th) among mid-sized and large States having population over 1 crore, while the State of Goa is at the lowest rank (7th) among the small States with a population less than 1 crore.
- The list of 7 Small States with a population less than one crore each, was topped by Sikkim which was ranked second in 2020
- The Indian judiciary is facing a severe shortage of judges and infrastructure, leading to rising pendency, increasing caseloads, and declining case clearance rates (CCR) in lower courts.
- The number of cases pending per judge is rising in most states over the last five years, while the sanctioned strength has remained the same.
- The caseload per judge has steadily increased, with the caseload per judge increasing in 22 states and Union Territories between 2018 and 2022.
- The CCR in High Courts improved by six percentage points (88.5% to 94.6%) between 2018-19 and 2022 but declined by 3.6 points in lower courts (93% to 89.4%).
- Nationally, the number of court halls appears sufficient for the number of actual judges, but space will become a problem if all the sanctioned posts are filled
India Justice Report Recommendations
The report highlights that India’s criminal justice system continues to face a wide range of challenges and shortcomings that need to be addressed to ensure the rule of law and equal access to justice. Additionally, the report calls for greater attention to be paid to the needs of victims of crime, including improving access to legal aid and victim compensation schemes. By addressing these challenges, India can move closer to achieving a more equitable and effective criminal justice system.
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