Source: The post is based on the article “The Just In Justice – A detailed report on the legal system shows how and why the poor are its biggest victims” published in The Times of India on 6th April 2023.
Syllabus: GS – 2: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary.
Relevance: About India Justice Report.
News: Recently India Justice Report 2022 was released.
About India Justice Report 2022
Karnataka topped the ranking. Five of the top six places are taken up by states from southern India.
Significance: Small but consistent improvements lead to big jumps in ranking. For example, Karnataka jumped 13 places since IJR 2020 to the top in 2022.
| Read here: India Justice Report 2022 | Judge vacancies remain endemic |
What are the concerns highlighted by the India Justice Report 2022?
Foremost challenge in the criminal justice system: India’s capacity to satisfactorily deliver justice lags behind its demand. For example, 77% of India’s prison population is made up of undertrials, people who haven’t been convicted. On average, they are spending longer time in prison than before. Undertrials serving more than five years in prison have more than doubled to 11,490 in the period between December 2017 and December 2021.
Worsen India’s capacity to deliver justice: There are 50 million pending cases, and they are taking longer time to resolve. This will only worsen India’s capacity to deliver justice.
Lack of legal aid provision: 70% of litigants in Indian criminal cases are below the poverty line. Between 2020 and 2022, IJR data showed that there was a 67% decline in legal services clinics. This highlights the alarming decline in legal aid provision in India’s justice delivery system. This may be an explanatory factor for the deterioration of other indicators such as the average length of time spent in jail by undertrials.
Overall, the reforms in the justice delivery system are neglected due to excessive focus on collegium reforms. So, this needs a reorientation.
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