Subordinate courts have 35% women judges
This was far better than the overall share of women in police force at 11.75% and 13% among prison staff, the report said.
Women judges in subordinate courts now constitute a national average of 35%, with five states recording above 50% women judicial officers, according to the 2022 India Justice Report released on Tuesday.
“Across the justice system, one out of 10 is a woman. Only 13% of high court judges and 35% subordinate court judges are women,” the third edition of the report initiated by Tata Trusts said, presenting rankings on how states have fared on various indices across the justice system comprising police, prisons, judiciary and legal aid.
This was far better than the overall share of women in police force at 11.75% and 13% among prison staff, the report said. Nationally, the data showed the share of women across the justice system to have increased from 18% in 2020 to 25% last year.
Among states, women constituted over 50% of the district judicial workforce, with Goa topping the chart at 70%, followed by Telangana (52.8%) among the big states, according to the report prepared in partnership with non-profits Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS–Prayas, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and How India Lives, a data cruncher.
Among smaller states, Meghalaya (62.7%), Sikkim (52.4%) and Mizoram (51.2%) were the top rankers.
The report followed a 24-month quantitative research, tracking the performance of states in capacitating their justice delivery structures to effectively deliver mandated services. Based on official statistics, the report analysed data on the four pillars of justice delivery – police, judiciary, prisons and legal aid through the prism of budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure and trends (intention to improve over a five-year period), against the state’s declared standards and benchmarks.
Based on the analysis, Karnataka topped the table, followed by Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Among the small states (population less than one crore each), Sikkim was at the top, followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.
The report also highlighted the crucial concern on vacancies. Vacancy among high courts stood at 30%, with just 20,076 high court judges available for 1.4 billion people. Vacancies in subordinate judiciary stood at 22%. “As of December 2022, India had 19 judges per million population when calculated against the sanctioned strength, and a backlog of 4.8 crore cases,” the report said.
The budget for judiciary was abysmally low, with the report pointing out that except for Delhi and Chandigarh, no state spends more than 1% of its total annual expenditure on the judiciary. The national per capita spending on judiciary stood at ₹146.
On reservations, the report found none of the states meeting the quota for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes at the district court level. “Only Gujarat and Chhattisgarh met their respective SC quotas. Arunachal Pradesh, Telangana and Uttarakhand met their respective ST quotas. Kerala, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Telangana met OBC quotas,” the report said.
On pendency of cases, the report found that in 28 states and union territories, one in every four high court cases remained pending for more than five years. In district courts of 11 states and union territories, one in every four cases was found pending for over five years.
“The third IJR shows that states are making a substantive improvement over the last two ones in terms of adding new dimensions on diversity, training, and infrastructure,” former Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur said. “Some states have dramatically improved their performance, but there is a lot that needs to be done.”
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