India Justice Report 2022

The Indian justice system faces numerous challenges, one of the most pressing being the concentration of police machinery in urban areas. Despite 60 per cent of India’s population living in rural areas, police forces remain predominantly concentrated in cities. Only six states/UTs including Goa, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Kerala, Puducherry and Lakshadweep meet the recommended area coverage of 150 square kilometre for a rural police station, pointing to a dire need for increased recruitment and training of police personnel in rural regions.

Another significant issue is the overloading of police training academies. India currently has only 211 training schools and academies for its 26.88 lakh sanctioned police personnel. Training should not be a one-time event for police officers. To address this, there is a need to increase the number of training institutes and personnel trained annually. A larger portion of the police budget should be allocated specifically for training purposes to improve overall effectiveness.

Prison overcrowding in India has been worsening, with prison populations rising steadily. In 2021, the number of people admitted to 1,319 prisons increased by 10.8 per cent compared to the previous year – from 16.3 lakh to 18.1 lakh. The average prison occupancy rate stands at 130 per cent with some states facing even more severe overcrowding. Addressing this issue requires exploring alternatives like rehabilitation, especially for non-violent offenders.

The number of undertrial prisoners continues to grow, with 77 per cent of the incarcerated population comprising undertrials, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2010 from 2.4 lakh to 4.3 lakh. Excepting Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh, the undertrial prisoners in all remaining states and union territories exceed 60 per cent of prison population.

India’s judiciary faces a backlog of cases, with 4.9 crore cases pending across the country in 2022. As many as 69 per cent of these were criminal cases.

The representation of women in the judiciary remains low, particularly in high courts. Between 2020 and 2022, there was less than a two-percentage-point increase in women’s representation in high courts. At the district court level, women accounted for 35 per cent of the total number of judges. Among the small states, Goa had the highest percentage of women judges at 70 per cent, followed by Meghalaya and Nagaland, both with 63 per cent. Among the 18 large and mid-sized states, Gujarat had the lowest share at 19.5 per cent, while Telangana had the highest at 52.8 per cent. In other large states like Jharkhand and Bihar, women judges made up 23 per cent and 24 per cent of the judiciary, respectively.

As of 2022, no state or union territory had fulfilled all quotas for judges from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (OBC) at the district court level. Nine states and union territories had met their OBC quotas.

The implementation of victim compensation schemes remains subpar. State Legal Aid Service Authorities disposed of only 66 per cent of the 97,037 applications for compensation received. To improve this situation, there is a need to raise awareness about victim compensation schemes and enhance the efficiency of processing applications.

The Indian judiciary is facing a severe shortage of judges and infrastructure, leading to rising pendency, increased caseloads, and declining case clearance rates in lower courts. As of December 2022, high courts were operating with only 778 judges against a sanctioned strength of 1,108. This shortage, along with the stagnant sanctioned strength, has resulted in an increasing number of cases pending per judge over the past five years. The average pendency in high courts is highest in Uttar Pradesh (11.34 years) and West Bengal (9.9 years), while Tripura (one year), Sikkim (1.9 years) and Meghalaya (2.1 years) have the lowest average pendency.

The caseload per judge steadily increased between 2018 and 2022, with 22 states and union territories experiencing this rise. Despite some improvement, the case clearance rate (CCR) in high courts only increased by six percentage points (88.5 per cent to 94.6 per cent) between 2018-19 and 2022. In lower courts, it declined by 3.6 points (93 per cent to 89.4 per cent).

High courts like Kerala and Odisha had a higher case clearance rates (156 and 131 per cent respectively), whereas Rajasthan and Bombay had the lowest (65 and 72 per cent respectively).

Nationally, the number of court halls appears sufficient for the current number of actual judges. However, this situation might change if all sanctioned posts are filled. As of August 2022, there were 21,014 court halls for the 24,631 sanctioned district judge posts, resulting in a shortfall of 14.7 per cent.

Focus and factoids by Khushi Patel.