According to the fourth edition of the India Justice Report (IJR 2025)Â released on 15 April 2025, Karnataka has topped the list of 18 large and mid-sized Indian states (with population over 1 crore) in terms of justice delivery.It is the only state that fulfilled the reservation quotas for Scheduled Caste (SC), Schedule Tribes (ST), and Other Backward class (OBC) communities in both the police and judiciary.
- Karnataka is followed by Andhra Pradesh (AP) at second place, Telangana at third, Kerala at fourth, and Tamil Nadu (TN) at fifth among the large and mid-sized states in the IJR 2025.
- Telangana made the biggest improvement, moving from 11th to 3rd place. West Bengal (WB)Â ranked lowest among the 18 large and mid-sized states. Karnataka got a score of 6.78 out of 10, while WB scored 3.63 overall.
- Among smaller states (with population upto 1 crore), Sikkim ranked first, followed by Himachal Pradesh (HP) at second place and Arunachal Pradesh (AR) at third while Goa was at the bottom.
About India Justice Report (IJR) 2025:
i​.The India Justice Report (IJR) is an annual publication initiated by Mumbai (Maharashtra) based Tata Trusts in 2019.
ii.The report evaluates how 36 states and Union Territories (UTs) of India are performing across four main pillars: police, judiciary, prisons, and legal aid.
- It evaluates these pillars by analysing key indicators such as staff strength, availability of infrastructure, utilisation of allocated budgets, workload management, and the level of inclusivity and diversity within each system.
iii.The 2025 edition was prepared by Tata Trusts in collaboration with organisations such as Ahmedabad ( (Gujarat)- based Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) based in New Delhi, Delhi , Bengaluru (Karnataka)- based Think-Tank and research institution, DAKSH, Mumbai (Maharashtra)- based TISS-Prayas, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy located in New Delhi and How India Lives (Media Company) also located in New Delhi as the data partner.
Top 5 States in IJR 2025(large and mid-sized States):
Rank | State | Score (out of 10) |
---|---|---|
1 | Karnataka | 6.78 |
2 | Andhra Pradesh(AP) | 6.32 |
3 | Telangana | 6.15 |
4 | Kerala | 6.09 |
5 | Tamil Nadu(TN) | 5.62 |
Top 5 States in IJR 2025(Small States):
Rank | State | Score (out of 10) |
---|---|---|
1 | Sikkim | 5.20 |
2 | Himachal Pradesh(HP) | 4.36 |
3 | Arunachal Pradesh(AR) | 4.21 |
4 | Tripura | 4.11 |
5 | Meghalaya | 4.02 |
Key Highlights:
I.Insights of Police System:
i.India’s police-to-population ratio remains at 155 per 1 lakh people, which is much lower than the required 197.5. Bihar had the lowest police ratio at just 81, though it showed the most improvement in the police category.
ii.Nearly 17% of police stations in India don’t have Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras, and 30% lack women help desks.
iii.There’s a significant gender gap, no state met the reservation target for women in the police force. Out of 2.4 lakh women police personnel, only 960 are in the Indian Police Service (IPS).
- Karnataka has only 9% women in the police force and 6% at officer level, despite setting a 25% target.
iii.The national per capita spending on police is the highest among all pillars at Rs 1,275.
II.Judicial Performance:
i.Rajasthan, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh (MP) made good progress in judicial indicators. Gujarat had the highest number of High Court (HC) judge and staff vacancies.
- The national per capita spending on judiciary is only Rs 182, and no state spends more than 1% of its total budget on it.
ii.The report highlighted that India, with a population of 1.4 billion, has only 21,285 judges, translating to approximately 15 judges per million population.
- This figure remains significantly below the 1987 recommendation of the Law Commission of India, which proposed 50 judges per million population.
iii.The report stated that in the district courts of 26 states and Union Territories (UTs), one in every three cases has been pending for over three years. Bihar recorded the highest pendency, with 71% of cases delayed beyond three years.
- Additionally, six states/UTs : Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Meghalaya, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh(UP), and WB reported more than 50% of cases pending for over three years.
- In contrast, Sikkim stood out as the only state with less than 10% of such long-pending cases.
III.State of Prisons:
TN ranked highest in prison management with good budget use and lowest staff vacancies. It also has the best ratio of 22 inmates per officer. Karnataka has the highest share of undertrial prisoners (UTP) – 80%.
- In the last 10 years, the industrial population in prisons has gone up from 66% to 76%.
- The national per capita spending on prisons is Rs 57, with AP spending the most per prisoner – Rs2.67 lakh annually.
IV.Legal Aid Services:
i.Haryana showed the most improvement in legal aid. Karnataka’s village-level legal clinics dropped drastically from 157 to 32.
- The national per capita spending on legal aid is just Rs 6 per year.
ii.During 2022 and 2023, the Supreme Court (SC) reached its full strength of 34 judges several times. A record 165 High Court(HC) judges were appointed in 2022, followed by 110 in 2023.