Recently, India Justice Report was released by Tata Trust, the report aims at ranking big, mid-sized, and small states on the basis of their judicial efficiency. This time, Uttar Pradesh is ranked the lowest amongst the 18 large and mid-sized states (population of more than one crore). It indicates that justice in UP is the most inaccessible.

On the other side, the list topper is Karnataka, followed by Tamil Nadu and Telangana on the second and third positions respectively.

Amongst the small states, Sikkim is placed on the top-most position. In addition to this, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura are ranking the on second and third respectively. While Goa stands last in the small state category.

The report states that vacancies affect ‘judicial efficiency’

Based on the most recent official statistics from reliable government sources, the report tracked how states performed in equipping their justice delivery systems to effectively provide required services. It also brought together previously isolated data on the four pillars of justice delivery—police, judiciary, prisons, and legal aid.

Budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure, and trends (intention to better over a five-year period) were all examined through the lens of each pillar in comparison to the state’s own stated standards and benchmarks. The 25 state human rights commissions were individually evaluated by the IJR for their capacity. The report made clear that vacancies affect the judiciary, legal assistance, prison personnel, and police.

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The India Justice Report reveals shocking data on the Indian judicial system

The report emphasized that India has about 20,076 judges for its 1.4 billion population, with about 22% of sanctioned positions unfilled and a 30% vacancy rate among high court judges.

According to the report, India had 4.8 crore open cases as of December 2022 and 19 judges per million people when compared to the sanctioned number. In addition, it stated that the Law Commission had hoped for 50 judges per million justices in ten years, as early as 1987.

According to the report, prisons are overcrowded at over 130% capacity, and more than two-thirds of inmates (77.1%) are waiting for the outcome of an inquiry or trial. In addition, it stated that although the number of women in the police has doubled over the past ten years, they still make up only about 11.75 percent of the force and that 29% of officer jobs are unfilled. The worldwide average is 222, while the police-to-population ratio in India is 152.8 per lakh.