Maharashtra tops in justice delivery: India Justice Report 2019

News: Tata Trusts has released India Justice Report 2019.

Facts:

About India Justice Report 2019:

• It has been prepared by Tata Trusts in collaboration with Centre for social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Daksh, TISS-Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
• It is India’s first-ever ranking of states on justice delivery.
• The report looks into the ‘four pillars’ – of Judiciary, Legal Aid, Police and Prisons, and analyses the budgets, human resources, personnel workload, diversity, infrastructure and trends against the government’s declared standards and benchmarks.

Key Takeaways from India Justice Report 2019

• Overall Ranking of States:
  • Maharashtra has topped the list of states in delivering justice to people followed by Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Haryana. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar ranked at the bottom.
  • Among the small states (where population is less than one crore each), Goa has topped the list followed by Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh. Tripura ranked at the bottom.
• Policing: the best score was achieved by Tamil Nadu – 6.49. UP received the lowest score- 2.98. UP fared poor in terms of budgeting, spending on police per person, vacancies and diversity.
• Prisons: Jharkhand performed the worst with a score of 3.46. It was followed by Uttarakhand (3.72), Punjab (4.35). The best in this regard was Kerala with a score of 7.18.
• Judiciary: Bihar, with a score of 2.41, fared the worst in this regard. It was followed by UP (3.7), Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand. Tamil Nadu featured on the top in terms of judiciary with a score of 6.99. It was followed by Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra.
• Legal aid: The report has said that almost 80% of India’s 1.25-billion population is eligible for free legal aid, but only 15 million people have availed it since 1995.