India Justice Report 2022

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in News?
• What is the India Justice Report?
• What are the Key Findings of the India Justice Report 2022?
• News Summary Regarding IJR’s Findings wrt Judiciary

Why in News?

• According to the India Justice Report (IJR) 2022, Indian courts are jammed with cases and are functioning with fewer judges than the sanctioned number.

What is the India Justice Report?

• It is a first of its kind national periodic reporting initiated by Tata Trusts in 2019 to rank the capacity of all 36 states and UTs to deliver justice.
• It analyses 4 core pillars of the justice system (Police, Prisons, Judiciary and Legal aid) through the prism of budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure, etc.
• The Report – a collaborative partnership between DAKSH, Common Cause, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, TISS-Prayas, etc – brings together otherwise siloed data on the 4 pillars of Justice delivery.
• The India Justice Report 2022 is the 3rd edition, which also assesses the capacity of the 25 State Human Rights Commissions in the country separately.

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What are the Key Findings of the India Justice Report 2022?

• Overall ranking of the 18 mid-sized and large States (population over 1 crore): Top (Karnataka), Worst (UP)

• Overall ranking of the 7 Small States (population less than 1 crore): Top (Sikkim), Worst (Goa)

• National deficits:

• Recommendations:

News Summary Regarding IJR’s Findings wrt Judiciary:

• Sanctioned vs actual strength:
  • As of December 2022, against a sanctioned strength of 1,108 judges, the High Courts were functioning with only 778 judges.
  • The subordinate courts were found functioning with 19,288 judges against a sanctioned strength of 24,631 judges.
• Rising pendency:
• Correspondingly, the number of cases pending per judge is rising in most States over the last five years.
• At HC level, UP has the highest average pendency, where cases remain pending for an average of 11.34 years.
• The lowest average HC pendency is in Tripura [1 year], Sikkim [1.9 years] and Meghalaya [2.1 years].
• Increasing caseload: The number of cases a judge has to deal with has also steadily increased. Between 2018 and 2022, the caseload per judge increased in 22 States and Union Territories.
• Case clearance rate (CCR):
  • A CCR, or the number of cases disposed of in a year, measured against the number filed in that year, of more than 100% indicates that the number of pending cases is reducing.
  • The HCs are increasingly clearing more cases annually than subordinate courts.
  • The HCs of Kerala and Odisha have higher case clearance rates (156% and 131% respectively), while the HCs of Rajasthan [65%] and Bombay [72%] have the lowest case clearance rates.
  • Tripura is the only State where the CCR in district courts remained above 100%.
• Infrastructure: Nationally, the number of court halls appears sufficient for the number of actual judges, however, it added that space will become a problem if all the sanctioned posts are filled.

Q1) What is the issue with the judicial system in India?

The biggest issue which the Indian judiciary faces is the huge backlog of cases, as the denial of ‘timely justice’, which is essential to maintain rule of law, amounts to the denial of ‘justice’ itself.

Q2) What is the Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS)?

LIMBS is a web-based application created by the Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry of Law and Justice, to make the legal data available at one single point and streamline the procedure of litigation matters conducted on behalf of govt. of India.

Source: India Justice Report 2022: Judge vacancies remain endemic | TH | IJR