Maharashtra Tops On Justice Delivery, Women Constitute Only 29% Of Judges In India: The India Justice Report 2020

The India Justice Report 2020 announced on Saturday has ranked Maharashtra at the top in terms of Justice delivery in India. The Report has tracked the the progress states have made in capacitating their justice delivery structures to effectively deliver services to all, and has taken account of the latest statistics and situations as they existed prior to March 2020. It has brought together statistics on the four pillars of Justice delivery : Police, Judiciary, Prisons and Legal Aid.

The Report has categorised the States into Large and Mid-sized states which have a population of over one crore each, and Small States, which have a population of less than one crore each. In terms of Justice delivery, Maharashtra has been ranked at the top of the 18 Large and Mid-sized states followed by Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Punjab and Kerala. Among the Small States Tripura has ranked at the top, followed by Sikkim and Goa

In terms of Prisons in the States, Rajasthan is on the top position in the Large states due to better budget utilisation, reduction in the overcrowding in prisons, and more officers, cadre and women staff. Himachal Pradesh showing great improvement has gone from Rank 6th last year to Rank 1st this year in the Small states, due to better utilisation of the budget, no medical officer vacancy and trained prison staff.

Karnataka has been found to be the only State to meet SC, ST and OBC diversity quota for officers, and has therefore been ranked Number 1 in terms of Police amongst the Large and Mid-size States. Himachal Pradesh, with its increasing police budget and more women in Police has been declared Rank 1 in the Small states.

Tamil Nadu has been declared as the top Large and Mid-sized State, and Sikkim as the top Small State, as far as the Judiciary is concerned. Chhattisgarh has shown a major growth in its Judiciary ranking going from Rank 12th to Rank 4th with more Courtrooms, more High Court Judges, and reduction in the number of pending cases in subordinate Courts. Contrary to this, West Bengal has shown a big drop owing to its lowest national spend, fewer number of High Court Judges and having most number of cases pending for over 5 years in the Subordinate Courts.

While its been found that Women comprise only 29% of judges in India, their participation has increased from 7% in 2017 to upto 10% now in Police and from 10% to upto 13% in Prisons. In the last 25 years, since 1995, only 1.5 crore people have received legal aid, though 80% of the country's population is entitled to.

The Report has noted that the per capita spend on Legal Aid has increased to Rs. 1.05 (2019-20) from 75p (2017-2018). There has not been a single large and mid-sized state whose increase in spends on Police, Prison and Judiciary exceeded the increase in overall state spend that occurred in 2014-2018.

The average spend per prisoner has increased by nearly 45% with Andhra Pradesh recording the highest annual spend on a prisoner and Meghalaya spending the least.

The India Justice Report (IJR) is an initiative of Tata Trusts in collaboration with Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS–Prayas, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and How India Lives.

According to Supreme Court's Former Justice Madan B. Lokur "While ranking states, the Report does not play up one state against another—it merely highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each pillar in each state thereby encouraging internal assessments for introducing positive changes in the delivery of justice. The Report fosters competition between states but more importantly, places the state in competition with itself to provide its people with the best possible justice delivery."

The Report is a result of rigorous quantitative research that analyses all the Pillars through the prism of budgets, human resources, personnel workload, diversity, infrastructure and trends against the state's own declared standards and benchmarks. It assesses how all the 29 states and 7 UTs have capacitated themselves and, out of them, ranks the 18 Large and Mid-sized states and 7 small-sized states introducing a spirit of competitiveness.

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