According to the 3rd edition of India Justice Report (IJR 3) 2022 released on 4th April 2023, Karnataka has topped the overall ranking among the large and mid-sized States (states with a population over 1 crore).
- Karnataka is followed by Tamil Nadu (TN) in 2nd position and Telangana in 3rd position.
- In this category, Uttar Pradesh (UP) is at rank 18th which is the lowest.
Sikkim topped the overall ranking among Small States (states with a population up to 1 crore).
- Sikkim has been followed by Arunachal Pradesh at 2nd and Tripura at 3rd place. Goa is at rank 7th which is the lowest.
Highlights:
i.Only Arunachal Pradesh reports having CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) cameras in all 14 spots (as directed by the Supreme Court) in all its 24 police stations.
- Only 8 states/UTs (Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Ladakh, Tripura, Karnataka, Delhi, Goa) reported having night vision-equipped CCTVs.
ii.Among the 18 large and mid-sized states, only Kerala could achieve case clearance rates of 100%.
iii.The reduction in the number of Legal services clinics dropped to 4,742 (2022) from 14,159 (2020).
iv.Tamil Nadu topped the Prison ranking with a score of 6.24 (on the scale of10) followed by Karnataka with 6.01 and Telangana with 5.35.
Assessment:
i.This report is based on the latest official statistics from authoritative government sources and is the result of 24-month quantitative research on four pillars of justice delivery: Police, Judiciary, Prisons, and Legal Aid.
ii.The report tracks the performance of each state in ensuring that their justice delivery structures are equipped to effectively provide the necessary services.
iii.To analyze the performance of each pillar, the report considers factors such as budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure, and trends compared to the state’s own declared standards and benchmarks.
iv.IJR 2022 also separately assesses the capacity of the 25 State Human Rights Commissions in the country.
Key Points:
i.As of December 2022, India had 19 judges per million population, a backlog of 4.8 crore cases. The actual number of judges now stands at 15 per million (ten lakh) population.
- For 1.4 billion people, India has about 20,076 judges with about 22% sanctioned posts vacant and vacancy among high court judges is at 30%.
ii.Prisons were over-occupied at over 130%, more than two-thirds of the prisoners (77.1 percent) are undertrials.
iii.In the police, women are only about 11.75%, despite their numbers doubling in the last decade and about 29% of the officer positions are vacant. Not a single state/UT meets their own reserved quotas for women in police.
- The police to population ratio is 152.8 per lakh, whereas the international standard is 222.
iv.India’s per capita spend on free legal aid (which 80% of the population is eligible for) is a meagre Rs 3.87 per annum.
- Except for two Union Territories (UTs), Delhi and Chandigarh, no state spends more than 1% of its total annual expenditure on the judiciary.
About IJR 2022:
The India Justice Report is a first-of-its-kind national periodic reporting that ranks the capacity of states to deliver justice.
It is a collaborative effort undertaken in partnership with Bengaluru (Karnataka) based civil society organisation DAKSH, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and TISS-Prayas.
- IJR was initiated by Tata Trusts in 2019.
- It tracks improvements and persisting deficits for all 36 states and UTs structural and financial capacity to deliver justice based on quantitative measurements.
Recent Related News:
i.On 7th February 2023, Shobha Karandlaje, Union Minister of State(MoS) for Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare, released the National Council of Applied Economic Research(NCAER)’s new report titled “Making India a Global Power House on Farm Machinery Industry” in Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi, Delhi. This study was sponsored by Mahendra & Mahendra.
ii.As per the Centre for Policy Analysis’ (CPA) inaugural assessment on global minorities in its’ Global Minority Report’, India has topped one among 110 nations for its inclusivity measures towards religious minorities. India has the highest level of religious minorities’ acceptance.
About Tata Trusts:
Chairman– Ratan N Tata
Headquarters– Mumbai, Maharashtra
