Introduction to IJR-2025

Maja Daruwala *

“What gets measured gets improved”

--Peter Drucker

The fourth edition of the India Justice Report (IJR) is all about comparisons, trends, and projections as it continues to assess the structural capacity of 18 large and medium-sized states and 7 small states to deliver justice. To its assessment of police, prisons, legal aid, the judiciary, and state human rights commissions, the report draws attention to forensics, mediation, and disabilities. Decadal comparisons and recent changes capture patterns, highlighting areas where states are making headway or falling behind, as well as allowing for future projections. As always, the IJR relies entirely on official data.

The India Justice Report’s time-series assessments reveal a landscape of dynamic change across the spectrum. Occupying the top five places, southern states dominate the latest rankings. Karnataka once again takes the top position and Andhra Pradesh climbs to second position from fifth. Telangana, eleventh in 2019, has retained its third position. Historically strong performers like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have experienced minor fluctuations but remain within the top five.

In the mid-tier, states like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha have shown steady gradual improvement. Maharashtra though sees a significant decline from its previously held top position, and Gujarat and Punjab exhibit inconsistent performances.

At the bottom tier, states such as Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal have largely maintained their positions with minor shifts. Notably, Uttar Pradesh rising one rung from the bottom has switched places with West Bengal. Overall, these changes underscore the shifting dynamics of state performance, shaped by evolving governance, economic policies, and other influencing factors.

The rankings of small states reveal a mix of trends. Sikkim consistently retains its top position. Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tripura occupy the middle ground but Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Goa show a dip in their most recent rankings to 5th, 6th, and 7th places, respectively.

The good news is that, overall, there has been a steady growth in investment in strengthening the structural capacity of the justice delivery system across all key institutions assessed by the India Justice Report. Budget allocations have risen, with judiciary per capita expenditure improving, and gender diversity within the lower judiciary and police has shown an upward trend as it has among legal aid secretaries and paralegal volunteers. Human resource capacity has seen some progress, with judicial vacancies reducing in select states and forensic staffing receiving renewed attention. Infrastructure improvements include reducing the deficits in court halls, and technology being used to fill critical gaps. Despite rising workloads, subordinate courts have improved case clearance rates, urban police stations have increased in number, and targeted interventions in prisons—such as expanded legal aid, video conferencing, and open prisons—are creating more avenues for decongestion and reform.

Trends and Ranking

Nevertheless, now four years distant from the severe disruptions of COVID-19, the present assessment finds that the gap between policy and implementation remains. The shocks and shortfalls of the pandemic have not led to radical changes in policy, practice, and procedures, but instead to a gradualist approach of business as usual.

Financial constraints fundamentally shape the structure and efficiency of every subsystem, compelling difficult trade-offs between competing priorities. Over the past decade, budget allocations for police, prisons, legal aid, the judiciary, and forensic services have seen only modest increases. In real terms, these allocations diminish further when adjusted for inflation.

Salaries consume the lion’s share of all budgets, leaving minimal scope for infrastructure development, modernisation, or capacity-building. This directly impacts training, which requires duty holders to have a thorough grounding in domain knowledge, job-related norms, procedures, and skills attuned to the positions they occupy.

Adequate investment in training is not merely an expense, but a crucial investment in the effective functioning of the entire justice system. Given the persistent pressure to do more with less, it is imperative that training be prioritised, not marginalised.

A cursory analysis of budgets and training facilities reveals a sparse landscape. Illustratively, national police training budgets do not exceed 1.25 per cent, with only four states allocating more than 2 per cent. Current data does not capture deeper facts about ranks or numbers trained, course durations, or availability of resource staff, and hence cannot inform policy decisions. Elsewhere, more insights are available. In 2023, the Centre for Research and Planning of the Supreme Court of India, in collaboration with the National Judicial Academy, evaluated judicial training. It analysed quality, emphasised the need for standardising substantive knowledge, and recommended skill development.

Diversity and Disabilities

India, a diverse agglomeration of marginalised communities, presents a complex challenge to inclusion. From caste groups to women, Dalits, minorities, transgender individuals and persons with disabilities, demands for representation within the justice system are ever-present. The aspiration behind affirmative action is to address historical and systemic inequalities faced by marginalised groups. The standard is to repair the gulf in representation of consistently underrepresented groups in all spheres—placing the onus on governments and public authorities to lead the way

The years have seen some progress, particularly for women and caste groups. The share of women in the police force has grown in all states and Union Territories (UTs), with five states showing a positive trajectory toward achieving 33 per cent representation.1 The proportion of women judges in subordinate courts has improved in nearly all states, while their presence in legal aid structures as panel lawyers and paralegal volunteers continues to expand. Additionally, caste-based representation formalised through quotas has ensured the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and OBCs mark their presence in the justice ecosystem. Nevertheless, leadership positions remain elusive.

Overall, there has been a steady growth in investment in strengthening the structural capacity of the justice delivery system across all key institutions assessed by the India Justice Report.

One group continues to remain largely invisible within the justice system—persons with disabilities. The nearly decade-old Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD) of 2016 mandates a 4 per cent reservation. While India’s legal framework acknowledges the rights of disabled individuals, systemic inaction has led to their continued exclusion. Within the police, judiciary, and prison administration, the representation of persons with disabilities is negligible, often ignored in recruitment policies or implementation. This leaves them both underrepresented as professionals and underserved as users of justice. True diversity in the justice system requires moving beyond token representation. While strides have been made for women and castebased inclusion, leadership gaps persist, and disability representation remains an afterthought.

Judiciary

Persisting vacancies, low case clearance rates and mounting arrears continue to dog the formal court system. By 2024, case accumulation had crossed the five-crore mark—an increase of over 30 per cent across all court levels: an increase that reflects the ongoing challenges with judicial vacancies, procedural inefficiencies, and the influx of new cases each year.

Efforts to improve recruitment speed and compliance with timelines for district judges have constantly been in the public eye, but structural issues like funding shortages, complex procedures, and judicial time to attend to these, while being short-handed, have remained major impediments to repair. Toward standardising recruitment processes, reducing regional disparities, and ensuring timely appointments in future, the need for an All-India Judicial Service (AIJS), and standardised recruitment calendars has been frequently mooted.

Numbers-wise, this has been one of the few periods in which the Supreme Court has managed to reach its full sanctioned strength of 34 judges several times. Efforts to fill vacancies have seen a record 165 high court judges appointed in 2022—the highest annual appointment rate thus far— with 110 appointments being made in 2023.2 Yet, over two years (2022 to 2024), high court vacancies have gone up, and in the lower courts, where most cases originate, they continue to hover around 20 per cent.

Too often, specialisations— fast-track courts, human rights courts, juvenile justice, consumer redressal systems, commercial courts—though recognised as aides to efficiency, fall short of desired outcomes for the same reasons that everyday courts fail: under-resourcing and overburden. Similarly, with shortages of trained personnel and lack of standardised procedures, the promise of mediation as a means of decluttering courts and speeding dispute resolution remains potential.

Practical pathways to improvement have emphasised the use of technology. With the objective of processing significantly higher numbers of new cases and streamlining administrative workload3 , some focussed initiatives included an emphasis on digitisation and e-governance—pushing for e-filing, setting up E-Sewa Kendras and a case management and information system, digitising court records, and paperless courts. The push for broader transparency saw more live-streaming of proceedings, an expansion of the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), and efforts to further enhance the dashboard’s technological infrastructure. NALSA’s Legal Service Management System platform now allows litigants to apply for legal aid online and track the status of their cases.4 Additional videoconferencing facilities at district courts and prisons provided access for individuals unable to attend in person and allowed for prioritisation of urgent cases, especially those involving individuals at risk of prolonged detention.

Optimisation of technological interventions was nevertheless hostage to prevailing power supply and bandwidth, hardware availability, and entrenched cultures. The issue now is whether even the halting momentum in some areas achieved over the last two years—whether amazing or unremarkable— will be carried forward at a steady pace.

Police

Nationally, the police-population ratio remained stagnant at 155 police personnel per 100,000 population, significantly below the sanctioned strength of 1975 . This shortfall varies considerably across states—at just 81 police per lakh Bihar exemplifies the situation. These gaps have far-reaching consequences: investigations take longer, crime prevention efforts falter, and public safety is compromised. Overburdened investigating officers must too often juggle with multiple serious cases—murder, fraud, cybercrime, rape—resulting in investigation backlogs, poor case preparation, uncertain outcomes at court and an accumulation of unresolved crimes that then feed a sense of lawlessness.

Concurrently, demographic shifts over five years have seen a 4 per cent increase in urban police stations and a 7 per cent decrease in rural areas. While urban stations typically cover 20 sq km, rural stations, stretched across over 300 sq km, signal the disparity in accessing policing services.

While progressive policies and legislative reforms are frequently enacted, their impact is often blunted by systemic failures in implementation. For instance, the Supreme Court’s 2020 detailed mandate for CCTV installation in police stations, aimed at enhancing accountability, has seen patchy compliance, with some states even showing an actual decline in compliance. As of early 2023, many police stations still lacked even a single CCTV, let alone meeting the stringent specifications set out in the Paramvir judgment of that year.

Forensics

Forensic science plays a crucial role in the delivery of justice. Across India, the administrative control and capacity of forensic laboratories varies significantly, raising concerns about their efficiency and impartiality. In several states—such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka— state forensic science laboratories function under the direct control of the police. This arrangement risks compromising the independence of forensic analysis. Elsewhere, forensic services work under the Home Department, ensuring some degree of institutional separation in forensic investigations.

Despite their importance, forensic labs across the country face significant capacity constraints. Many suffer from chronic underfunding, outdated infrastructure, and an acute shortage of skilled personnel. The increasing demand for forensic analysis, coupled with limited resources, has led to case backlogs that delay both investigations and trials. Budgetary allocations remain insufficient, and slow recruitment processes exacerbate the shortage of trained experts. Additionally, the lack of adequate regional forensic facilities means that crucial evidence often has to be sent to overburdened state-level laboratories, further prolonging forensic examinations and delaying investigation and trials.

To address these challenges, both the central and state governments have initiated efforts to strengthen forensic capacity. The Union government has proposed setting up regional forensic science laboratories to ease case pendency, while also working to modernise infrastructure and integrate forensic training into law enforcement and judicial processes. Some states have taken independent steps: Tamil

Over the past decade, budget allocations for police, prisons, legal aid, the judiciary, and forensic services have seen only modest increases.

Nadu, for one, has expanded its forensic workforce and invested in advanced forensic technology, while Delhi has introduced measures to streamline forensic and autopsy coordination to expedite case resolution. The Centre has also introduced the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill to establish standardised forensic procedures and enhance the reliability of forensic evidence. Ensuring the long-term effectiveness of these measures will require sustained investment, inter-agency collaboration, and a commitment to keeping forensic science independent, well-resourced, and aligned with the broader goal of justice delivery

The share of women in the police force has grown in all states and Union Territories (UTs), with five states showing a positive trajectory toward achieving 33 per cent representation

Prisons

Despite amended legislation, numerous judicial directions, targeted interventions to reduce populations, and the adoption of the Model Prison Manual 2016 by many states, prison conditions remain lamentable. Over the last decade, prison populations have surged by nearly 50 per cent. The proportion of undertrials— people awaiting completion of investigation or trial—has escalated from 66 per cent to 76 per cent.

Nationally, average overcrowding in prisons stands at 131 per cent. But a dozen prisons house four times more inmates than they should. The Amitava Roy Committee points out in its 2023 report to the court (Re Inhuman Conditions in 1,382 Prisons) that only 68 per cent of inmates have adequate sleeping space. Though budgets have increased, human resources and infrastructure simply cannot keep pace. All too often a single doctor is available for hundreds of inmates, grossly exceeding the stipulated benchmark of 300 inmates per doctor. A lack of trained welfare officers, social workers, and psychologists ensures prisoners often leave in a worse condition than when they entered, increasing recidivism and further burdening the justice system. The Amitava Roy Committee’s ringing exhortations to “act with committed sincerity and resolute responsibility in a mission mode with vision and passion” remain unattainable without the fundamental raw materials of adequate financial, infrastructure, and human resource capacity. Until then prisons must remain holding pens far distant from the centres of reform and rehabilitation envisioned in the Model Prison and Correctional Services Act of 2023.

Legal Aid

This period has seen legal aid emphasise support for specific mechanisms, such as the Legal Aid Defence Counsel (LADC) system, jail clinics, and the careful calibration of timelines and funds for National Lok Adalats. This focus on targeted interventions has been accompanied by a significant shrinkage of resources for broader, community-based interventions. Consequently, the number of paralegal volunteers has trimmed down, the broader legal awareness mandate has been deprioritised, and taluka-level legal advice and counselling centres, important points of access for distant communities, are now all but defunct.

This shift in direction, while beneficial in addressing specific concerns like prisoner representation, may inadvertently neglect another foundational pillar of legal services—the widespread need for basic legal information and accessible localised support—potentially worsening existing inequalities in access to justice.

State Human Rights Commissions

The India Justice Report 2022 (published in 2023) assessed the capacity of State Human Rights Commissions (SHRCs) to effectuate their broad mandates for the first time. Two years on, their functioning remains underscored by a recurring theme of gaps between their intended mandate and actual capability on the ground.

Incremental improvements measured through basic metrics such as enhanced budget utilisation, advancements in gender diversity, and improved case disposal rates, have a significant impact on rankings. For instance, West Bengal’s SHRC has risen from the bottom to first place due to these changes. However, this does not in itself signal an ability to deliver quality functionality. For instance, impressively high disposal rates of over 80 per cent across SHRCs are misleading as the figure is mainly made up of complaints that are rejected at the outset rather than any institutional effort at comprehensive and early resolution of grievances.

Finally, SHRCs do little to help their own image or functionality by frequently failing to update websites, publish detailed case and diversity statistics or to publish timely annual reports. A reluctance to respond to RTI queries that require little more than access to public data, as well impedes public accountability, obscures operational deficits and good practice, and leaves much of their functioning beyond public scrutiny.

Conclusion

India’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 includes ambitious targets for gender equality, reduced inequalities, peace, justice, and strong institutions. While some progress is likely in certain areas, particularly improved access to justice that is driven by digitisation and increased legal awareness, full achievement across all goals will remain a challenge. Women’s participation in the justice system may rise, though parity is unlikely given the current pace of change. Assuring justice for all will also remain an aspiration despite targeted programmes, as capacity deficits and implementation gaps will persist. Significant progress is most achievable where policy reforms are combined with technology and increased public awareness. Ultimately, transformative change requires sustained effort, increased investment, and a holistic approach to addressing complex social and economic inequalities.

In the time between 2022 and 2024, post the disruptions of Covid, there has been a national election and a series of state elections. Governments have changed and with this have assumed the responsibility of improving and making the justice delivery systems fit for purpose.

Valuable initiatives aimed at strengthening India’s justice system are evident in the implementation of mechanisms like the Under-Trial Review Committees (UTRCs), Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) committees, Legal Aid Defense Counsel (LADC) systems, and the new compulsory forensic investigation in serious crime cases mandated in the Bhartiya Nagrik Surakhsha Sanhita. While each addresses distinct facets of justice delivery, they reflect an effort to address long-term challenges. To stand strong they need a solid foundation of structural capacity.

Illustratively, sudden infusions of technology alone cannot be relied upon. Nor is its introduction any guarantee of reductions in workload stress. For example, the introduction of video-conferencing in prisons may have reduced time and cost to administrators who no longer have to expend time and personnel to ferry hundreds of prisoners back and forth from courts in district after district, but given the ever-increasing figures of inmates awaiting trial, there is nothing to show that it has

Forensic labs across the country face significant capacity constraints. Many suffer from chronic underfunding, outdated infrastructure, and an acute shortage of skilled personnel sped up the delivery of justice. Meanwhile, its potential for improving medical attention and expanding education possibilities in prison is yet to be realised.

While a perfectly funded system may remain an aspirational ideal, the guiding principle should be resource allocation that generates equitable benefits across all public goods.

finances require duty holders to do more with less. Inevitably, limited financial resources demand that those responsible for service delivery maximise efficiency and achieve more with fewer resources. It is logical then to prioritise increased spending and systemic improvements only in areas yielding the greatest positive impact for the largest number of citizens.

Data can help with this. Disaggregated, consistent, timely and accurate data, accessible and compiled year-on-year in one place in relation to justice delivery, provides the basis for policy makers to frame future directions and identify priorities within a complex set of interdependent operations. Digital initiatives like e-Prisons and digitised court records offer potential for improved data utilisation, but a fragmented ecosystem of data sources makes cross-referencing and correlation difficult, hindering the ability to draw meaningful conclusions to base overall policy or pinpoint pain points that need priority intervention.

Weak institutions breed injustice. Persistent institutional deficits hinder the fair application of law, creating a system where some individuals or groups are more vulnerable to unfair treatment, while others may enjoy impunity. Over time, when the system is unable to address this pattern of inconsistent application of the law, it erodes public trust and leads to a tacit acceptance that the rule of law is not a priority.

The problems of overall capacity deficits, impossible arrears, overfull jails, and inadequate avenues of legal redress have culminated in creating a ‘wicked problem’–multifaceted, deeply challenging, and inviting no single definite pathway to a complete solution; a problem so big from every angle that the solution is not one but many. Multiple efforts need to move forward at the same time and together before solutions can take shape and build momentum.

Even then, the problem may not go away but morph into other forms. Yet, endeavour will defeat stasis and accumulation, and we will not be where we began. As India moves forward into a hundred years of being a democratic, rule of law nation, making the justice system ‘better’, envisions a system that is more accessible, equitable, efficient, and responsive to the needs of the people it serves—a system that truly lives up to the ideals of the Constitution and works tirelessly to ensure that justice is not only done but is seen to be done.

References

• Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Ladakh, and Tamil Nadu
• Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1006 dated 8 December 2023. Available at: https://bit.ly/49bUW4n
• Supreme Court of India, E-committee Newsletter, November 2024. Available at: https://bit.ly/4pfviS6
• NALSA Legal Aid Case Management System. Available at: https://bit.ly/4pW6Czi
• Bureau of Police Research and Development, Data on Police Organisations 2023, Table 2.1.3 p.54. Available at: https://bit.ly/4sjaqMI

IJR-NATIONAL FINDINGS

A Timely Call For Action

The India Justice Report 2025 offers a comprehensive national assessment of how effectively states are equipping their justice delivery institutions. Drawing on two years of data from authoritative government sources, this fourth edition of the report evaluates performance across four pillars of the justice system--police, judiciary, prisons, and legal aid. Within these pillars, trends in human resources, diversity, workload, budgets, and infrastructure are analysed. While some incremental improvements are visible, the report underscores that deep structural and capacity gaps continue to constrain access to justice.

Personnel and Infrastructure Shortages

Across the country, the justice system is constrained by acute shortages. India has only 15 judges for every 10 lakh people, far below the Law Commission’s recommended 50. More than 1 in 3 posts remain vacant at the high courts, while district courts report about 1 in 5 posts vacant. These shortages translate into overwhelming caseloads; some high court judges handle as many as 15,000 cases each, while district judges manage an average of 2,200 cases.

The police system faces similar systemic strain. With just 120 police personnel per lakh against a benchmark of 222, officer-level vacancies stand at 28 per cent and constabulary vacancies at 21 per cent.

The prison system remains overcrowded and under-resourced.

National occupancy rates exceed 131 per cent, and 1 in every 3 prisons in Uttar Pradesh record occupancy levels above 250 per cent. Shortages within prison staff are severe, including 28 per cent vacancies among officers and cadre staff, 44 per cent among correctional staff, and 43 per cent among medical officers. There needs to be one doctor for every 300 prisoners, but presently there is only one for every 775. Forensic services are also hampered, with nearly half of administrative and scientific posts vacant. These deficits sharply limit the capacity of the justice system to provide timely and effective services.

The prison system remains overcrowded and under-resourced. National occupancy rates exceed 131 per cent, and 1 in every 3 prisons in Uttar Pradesh record occupancy levels above 250 per cent.

Across the country, the justice system is constrained by acute shortages. India has only 15 judges for every 10 lakh people, far below the Law Commission’s recommended 50

Diversity

Representation of women and marginalised communities shows limited progress. Although the overall presence of women in policing has increased slightly to 12 per cent, their numbers remain extremely low in senior positions. Of the 2.42 lakh women in police nationwide, only 960 hold IPS-rank posts, and women constitute just 8 per cent of all officers. Nearly 90 per cent of women police personnel are concentrated in the constabulary. No state or union territory meets the 33 per cent representation benchmark for women in police.

Social diversity also remains uneven. While almost three out of every five police personnel come from SC, ST, or OBC communities, their presence thins dramatically at senior ranks, falling to about 1 out of 6 officers. In the district judiciary, only 5 per cent of judges belong to ST communities and 14 per cent to SCs, and of the 698 judges appointed to high courts since 2018, only 37 come from SC/ST backgrounds.

Improvements

Certain infrastructural indicators show gradual improvement. A larger proportion of prisons now have video-conferencing facilities (86%), courts have seen a marginal reduction in courtroom shortages (14.5%), and police stations equipped with CCTVs have increased (83%). Most police stations now have Women Help Desks (78%).

The legal aid system shows a complex picture of improvement and decline. Per capita spending on legal aid has increased from Rs. 4.57 in IJR 3 (2022) to Rs. 6.46 per person, but the number of community-based paralegal volunteers has fallen sharply

Yet several areas remain cause for concern. India’s undertrial population continues to grow, and more than two-thirds of prisoners are undertrials (76%). They are spending longer periods in custody, with the share of those incarcerated for three to five years doubling over the last decade, and those detained for more than five years have tripled. Rural police stations have declined significantly, while the number of urban stations has increased. The availability of legal aid in rural areas has also weakened as village legal aid clinics have decreased.

The legal aid system shows a complex picture of improvement and decline. Per capita spending on legal aid has increased from Rs. 4.57 in IJR 3 (2022) to Rs. 6.46 per person, but the number of communitybased paralegal volunteers has fallen sharply-–dropping by 38 per cent in five years. Only one-third of trained volunteers are actually deployed. Budgetary allocations across justice institutions vary considerably. While police spending has grown by 55 per cent over six years and now stands at nearly Rs. 1,300 per capita, spending on the judiciary and prisons remains far lower. Training budgets continue to be minimal, with police forces dedicating only 1.25 per cent of their expenditure to training.

Conclusion

Overall, the India Justice Report 2025 presents a clear call to action. Incremental improvements in infrastructure and certain performance metrics cannot compensate for deep and persistent gaps in staffing, diversity, and institutional capacity. States need to fill vacancies urgently, improve representation, increase investment in training, strengthen undertrial review mechanisms, and designate justice delivery as an essential public service. Without comprehensive, long-term reform, the constitutional guarantee of equal access to justice will remain beyond reach for large sections of the population.

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