INDIA
JUSTICE REPORT - REPORT AND INDICES
News:
Justice system plagued by
low budgets: India Justice Report 2022
What's
in the news?
●
Although states have increased budget
allocation for legal aid, legal aid clinics reduced by 44 percent between 2019 to
2021, the India Justice Report (IJR) 2022 stated, while adding that all states
and Union Territories contributed more than 60 percent to their legal aid
budgets.
Highlights
of the Report:
●
The India Justice Report (IJR) 2022,
released in New Delhi, ranks 18 large
and mid-sized states with populations over one crore based on justice
delivery in four pillars such as
○
Police
○
Judiciary
○
Prisons
○
Legal Aid.
Rankings
of the state:
●
Karnataka
ranked first, followed by Tamil Nadu and Telangana, while Uttar Pradesh ranked
last at 18.
●
Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh secured the
fourth and fifth position, respectively.
●
The report also includes a list of seven
small states with a population of less than one crore each. The rankings are:
○
Sikkim topped the list, followed by
Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.
○
Goa secured the seventh position, which is
the lowest.
India
Justice Report:
●
The India Justice Report (IJR) was initiated by Tata Trusts in 2019, and
this is the third edition.
●
The
Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative,
DAKSH, TISS-Prayas, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and How India Lives are the
foundation’s partners.
●
The IJR 2022 is based on 24-month quantitative
research and tracks the performance of states in capacitating their justice
delivery structures to effectively deliver mandated services.
●
The report brings together data from
authoritative government sources on the four pillars of justice delivery, which
is otherwise siloed.
●
The report also assesses the capacity of
the 25 State Human Rights Commissions in the country separately.
●
Each pillar of justice delivery is
analyzed through budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure,
and trends against the state’s declared standards and benchmarks.
Salient
Findings and Recommendations:
Below are some of the
salient findings of the report – overcrowded
prisons, not enough training centres for police personnel, a rising number of
pending cases per judge, and more.
|
Findings |
Highlights |
Recommendations |
|
1. Policing concentrated in urban areas
|
60% of India’s
population lives in rural areas, yet police forces are concentrated largely
in urban areas.
Only six states
meet the recommended area coverage of 150 sq. km for a rural police station.
|
Increase
recruitment and training of police personnel in rural areas to ensure
adequate coverage.
Increase
police-community engagement and build trust in rural communities.
|
|
2. Police training academies are overloaded |
India has only
211 training schools and academies for 26.88 lakh police personnel.
Training across
fields cannot be a one-off event for police personnel.
|
Increase the
number of training institutes and the number of personnel trained each year.
Allocate a
larger portion of the police budget to training.
|
|
3. Prison overcrowding is getting worse |
Prison
populations have risen steadily with the number of people admitted to 1,319
prisons during 2021 increasing by 10.8%.
The average
prison in the country has an occupancy rate of 130%. In some states, this
number is far worse. |
Invest in
building new prisons and expanding existing ones.
Explore alternative
forms of punishment and rehabilitation for non-violent offenders.
|
|
4. Number of undertrial prisoners increasing
|
77% of the
incarcerated population comprises undertrials.
This number has
nearly doubled since 2010. |
Streamline legal
processes to reduce the number of undertrials.
Increase the use
of bail and release on personal recognizance. |
|
5. Cases pending per judge rising |
9 Crore cases
remain pending across high courts and district courts in the country.
Many cases have
been pending for over 10 years.
Increase the
number of judges to reduce the backlog of cases. |
Modernize court
processes with technology to streamline proceedings.
|
|
6. Share of women high court judges remains low |
Between 2020 and
2022, there was a little less than a 2%point increase in women’s
representation in high courts.
Women account
for 35% of the total number of judges at the district court level. |
Implement
policies to encourage more women to become judges.
Provide training
and support for women judges to advance in their careers.
|
|
7. No state/UT fulfilled all quotas for SC/ST/OBC
judges at district court level
|
No state/UT
could fully meet all its quotas for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and
Other Backward Classes.
|
Increase
recruitment of judges from marginalized communities.
Implement
policies to encourage and support their advancement in the judiciary.
|
|
8. Allocation to legal aid increasing, but no
state/UT used its entire budget allocation
|
Over the last
two years, the overall allocation for legal services has increased
substantially.
No state/UT used
its entire budget allocation for legal aid. |
Ensure efficient
utilization of resources for legal aid.
Implement
monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to track the impact of legal aid on
access to justice. |
|
9. Implementation of victim compensation schemes
remains subpar |
State Legal Aid
Service Authorities disposed of only 66% of the 97,037 applications seeking
compensation received.
|
Increase
awareness of victim compensation schemes.
Improve
efficiency in processing and disposing of compensation applications.
Provide support
services for victims, including legal and mental health services. |