India Justice Report 2020

Despite the push for digitisation, no state offered all the required policing services through their citizen portals, the report notes. Portals faced accessibility challenges, including non-functional sites, browser restrictions, and language limitations. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh scored the highest in this category by providing 90 per cent of all expected services and languages. Bihar was the only state which did not have a portal.

Between 2015 and 2019, Bihar showed the most progress in increasing women’s representation in the police force (from 7 per cent to 25 per cent), followed by Himachal Pradesh (from 12 per cent to 19 per cent) and Gujarat (from four per cent to 12 per cent). However, women officers still make up only about seven per cent of the police officers nationally.

Among large and mid-sized states, the median value for appointments of officers belonging to Scheduled Castes was 67 per cent of the sanctioned quota, while for constables, it was 90 per cent. As of 2020, Karnataka was the only state to meet and exceed its Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Classes quotas at the officer level.

Based on national figures, one police officer is responsible for 858 people, an increase of 75 people since 2017. Bihar had the worst ratio (one police officer for 1,548 people), while Punjab had the best (1 officer for 462 people) among large and mid-size states. Manipur, under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), had one officer for every 202 people due to the presence of additional armed forces.

As of 2020, one in five police constable posts remained vacant, with Telangana and West Bengal having the highest vacancies at 40 per cent each. Uttarakhand (three per cent), Himachal Pradesh (five per cent) and Goa (four per cent) had the lowest vacancies. Between 2015 and 2019, 19 states and union territories had reduced shortfalls at the officer and constabulary levels, the report notes.

Prison staff include officers, cadre staff, correctional staff and medical staff. Average vacancy levels across all categories remained above 30 per cent nationally.

The report states that as of December 2019, no state was able to provide adequate training for all personnel working in prisons. Telangana led, having provided 92 per cent of its staff with necessary training, followed by Tamil Nadu (55 per cent), Maharashtra (43 per cent) and Delhi (42 per cent). Only three regional prison training institutes catered to both officers and cadre staff and institutes in general lacked sufficient resources and infrastructure to ensure prison staff had regular refresher training.

Prison overcrowding remained a major issue with 19 per cent overcrowding notes at the national level, up five percentage points from 2016. Delhi (175 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (168 per cent), and Uttarakhand (159 per cent) recorded the highest overcrowding.

The Model Prison Manual, 2016 mandates a minimum of one medical officer for every 300 prisoners and one full-time doctor in central prisons. But approximately 25 per cent of medical officer positions remained vacant in half the states/UTs. Around 12 states/UTs had a shortfall of 50 per cent or more for medical officers.

In High Courts, pending cases increased from 40.12 lakhs to 44.25 lakhs between 2016-17 and 2018-19. Whereas in the lower courts pending cases rose from 2.83 crores to 2.97 crores.

During the same period, share of women judges in High Courts increased from 11 per cent to 13 per cent. In subordinate courts, the figure increased from 28 to 30 per cent. Goa had the largest share of women judges in subordinate courts at 72 per cent but only 13 per cent in its High Court. The report adds that data on religious and social diversity among judges remains unavailable, especially for the subordinate judiciary.

Focus and Factoids by Amritha Moorthy.