India Justice Report 2020

• 29 Jan 2021

Why in News

The India Justice Report (2020) prepared by the Tata Trusts in collaboration with the Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, DAKSH, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has been released recently.

• The Report assesses the capacity of various states to deliver justice.

Key Points

• About the Report:
  
  • The report analysed expenditure, vacancies, representation of women, human resources, infrastructure, workload, diversity across 18 large and medium-sized states with a population of over 1 crore and 7 small states.
• Findings:
  
  • Overall Ranking:
    
    • The overall ranking is a result of a state’s ranking across the four pillars of justice delivery system - Judiciary, Police, Prisons and Legal aid.
    • Maharashtra was ranked topmost among 18 states for the second time in a row, followed by Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Uttar Pradesh remains last.
    • Amongst the smaller states, Goa remained at the top and Arunachal Pradesh at the bottom.
  • Women Ratio in Police Force:
    
    • Bihar leads the list of 25 states for employing most women in its police force which is 25.3%.
    • It is the only state to have more than 20% women in the police force. However, women account for only 6.1% in the officer category.
    • Tamil Nadu has the highest percentage of women police officers (24.8%), followed by Mizoram (20.1%).
  • Women Ratio in Judiciary:
    
    • Overall, only 29% judges in High Courts across the country are women, but no state except Sikkim has over 20% women judges.
    • Four states - Bihar, Uttarakhand, Tripura and Meghalaya have no woman judges in high courts.
  • Social Justice:
    
    • Karnataka is the only state to meet its quotas for SC, ST and OBC in both officer cadre and constabulary.
    • Chhattisgarh being the only other state that meets the diversity requirements for constabulary.
  • Lack of Finances:
    
    • In the last 25 years, only 1.5 crore people have received legal aid with the Centre spending Rs. 1.05 per capita in 2019-20.
  • High Proportion of Undertrials:
    
    • Two-thirds of all prisoners are undertrials awaiting a conviction.
      
      • A person who is being held in custody awaiting trial for a crime.
  • Causes of Poor Justice Delivery:
    
    • Legal services institutions remain affected by a lack of infrastructure, uneven human resource distribution, poor utilization of central funds and an inability to effectively harness Lok Adalats to ease the burden on the judiciary.

Source:IE