INDIA JUSTICE REPORT Ranking States on Police, Judiciary, Prisons & Legal Aid ndia Justice Report | 2019 Supported by INDIA JUSTICE REPORT | i India Justice Report: Ranking States on Police, Judiciary, Prisons and Legal Aid Published in October 2019 by Tata Trusts Since inception in 1892, the Tata Trusts, India’s oldest philanthropic organisation, have played a pioneering role in bringing about an enduring difference in the lives of the communities it serves. Guided by the principles and the vision of proactive philanthropy of the Founder, Jamsetji Tata, the Trusts’ purpose is to catalyse development in the areas of healthcare and nutrition, water and sanitation, education, energy, rural upliftment, urban poverty alleviation, and arts, craft and culture. The Trusts’ programmes, achieved through direct implementation, partnerships and grant making, are marked by innovations, relevant to the country. For over a century we have been working to improve the quality of life of all Indians, particularly the vulnerable and marginalised. Tata Trusts have been spearheading social change in the criminal justice and juvenile justice systems in India by focusing on addressing the needs of the most marginalised sections of society. Changes within the justice system are complicated, systemic and interlinked and require critical attention and interventions. These interventions have been implemented across 10 states, either directly or in partnership with state governments. The Trusts have also provided grants to civil society organisations to promote research and advocate policy changes. For more information, please visit https://www.tatatrusts.org/ Cover design by Niyati Singh, Tata Trusts Designed by How India Lives Printed by PrintWorld Address: 1743 Udaychand Marg, Ist & UGF, Kotla Mubarakpur Near South Ex. Part I, New Delhi-110003 © Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, 2019. This report is based on publicly available data of different government entities and the judiciary. All efforts were made to verify that the information presented herein is correct to the best of our knowledge. The Tata Trusts and the authors disclaim any responsibility for the correctness or accuracy of the references, information, data or their sources used in this report generally and/or in support of the rankings. All rights reserved. Any part of this report, including design, may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo copy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, using the citation provided below. Suggested citation: 'India Justice Report: Ranking States on Police, Judiciary, Prisons and Legal Aid', Tata Trusts, New Delhi, India (2019). ii | TATA TRUSTS Ranking States On Police, Judiciary, Prisons and Legal Aid INDIA JUSTICE REPORT | iii INDIA JUSTICE REPORT 2019: The India Justice Report ranks 18 large and mid-sized, and 7 small states according to their capacity to deliver justice to all. It uses government data to assess the budgets, infrastructure, human resources, workloads, diversity and 5 year trends of police, prisons, judiciary and legal aid in each state, against its own declared standards. This first of its kind study is an initiative of Tata Trusts undertaken in partnership with Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative(CHRI), DAKSH, TISS-Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Steering Committee l Maja Daruwala, Senior Advisor, Tata Trusts l Shireen Vakil, Head of Policy and Advocacy, Tata Trusts l Gagan Sethi, Co-founder and Vice-Chair, Centre for Social Justice l Vipul Mudgal, Director, Common Cause l Sanjoy Hazarika, International Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative l Harish Narasappa, Co-founder, DAKSH l Valay Singh, Project Lead, Tata Trusts l Prof. Vijay Raghavan, TISS-Prayas l Dr. Arghya Sengupta, Co-founder, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy Chief Editor Maja Daruwala Editorial, research and coordination l Valay Singh, Project Lead, Tata Trusts l Niyati Singh, Lead Researcher, Tata Trusts Authors l Subrat Das, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability l Asadullah, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability l Nupur, Centre for Social Justice l Akhilesh Patil, Common Cause l Radhika Jha, Common Cause l Devika Prasad, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative l Devyani Srivastava, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative l Madhurima Dhanuka, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative l Sugandha Mathur, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative l Shruthi Naik, DAKSH l Leah Verghese, DAKSH l Prof. Vijay Raghavan, TISS-Prayas l Ameen Jauhar, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy l Diksha Sanyal, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy l Gangadhar Patil, CEO & Founder, 101 Reporters Data and Design How India Lives (www.howindialives.com) iv | TATA TRUSTS About our partners Centre for Social Justice (IDEAL) is an international non-governmental organization organization fi ghting for the rights of the working in the area of human rights. Through marginalized and the vulnerable, principally its reports, research and advocacy, CHRI draws in the sphere of access to justice. Inspired by attention to the progress and setbacks to human Freirean thought, CSJ has been active in more rights in Commonwealth countries. In advocating than eight states across India, creating human for approaches and measures to prevent human rights interventions, using law as a key strategy rights abuses, CHRI addresses the Commonwealth through an intimate engagement with grassroot Secretariat, the United Nations Human Rights realities. Central to CSJ’s efforts are its institutional Council members, civil society and the media on interventions in legal reform and research, which criminal justice concerns. bridge and symbiotically combine grassroots activism, law and policy-making on a wide gamut Prayas is a social work demonstration project of issues concerning the rights of women, Dalits, of the Center for Criminology and Justice, Tata Adivasis, minorities and other socially vulnerable Institute of Social Sciences. Prayas’s focus is on groups. service delivery, networking, training, research and documentation, and policy change with Common Cause is dedicated to championing respect to the custodial/institutional rights and public causes, campaigning for probity in public rehabilitation of socio-economically vulnerable life and the integrity of institutions. It seeks to individuals and groups. Their mission is to promote democracy, good governance and public contribute knowledge and insight to the current policy reforms through advocacy and democratic understanding of aspects of the criminal justice interventions. Common Cause is especially known system policy and process, with specifi c reference for the difference it has made through a large to socio-economically vulnerable and excluded number of Public Interest Litigations (PILs), such communities, groups and individuals who are at as recent ones on the cancellation of the entire greater risk of being criminalized or exposed to telecom spectrum; cancellation of arbitrarily traffi cking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. allocated coal blocks; and the Apex Court’s recognition of an individual’s right to die with The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy is an dignity. independent think-tank doing legal research to make better laws, and improve governance for DAKSH is a Bengaluru based civil society the public good. Vidhi engages with ministries organization that is working on judicial reforms and departments of the Indian government, as at the intersection of data science, public policy well as state governments, and also collaborates and operations research. DAKSH's primary focus is with other relevant stakeholders within public on the Rule of Law Project which it began in 2014 institutions, and civil society members, to assist in order to evaluate judicial performance and, in and better inform the laws and policies being particular, to study the problem of pendency of effectuated. The Centre also undertakes, and cases in the Indian legal system. freely disseminates, independent research in the areas of legal reform, which it believes is critical to The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative India’s future. (CHRI) is an independent, non-profi t, non-partisan, INDIA JUSTICE REPORT | v vi | TATA TRUSTS Foreword he India Justice Report is a path-breaking to the study of the justice system in India. It is endeavour consolidating the efforts of comprehensive and brings to light several systemic numerous individuals and organizations faults and shortcomings, such as the abysmally working towards the improvement of low priority afforded to the justice machinery in Tthe Indian justice system. The commendable state budgets, the persistence of an average 20 per purpose of the Report is to attract the attention of cent vacancy across the various pillars in the justice the stakeholders in the system to two important system, and the lack of diversity within them. areas of national concern—access to justice, and the health of our institutions responsible for justice While emphasizing how the ineffi ciencies in the delivery. working of any institution in the justice system adversely affect the working of other institutions The fulfi lment of our civilizational aspirations is and eventually hinder access to, and the delivery of, contingent on laws that give effect to constitutional justice itself, the Report provides us a comparison provisions, and the law-abiding spirit of citizens of how extensive such problems are in various of the country. Strong laws are by themselves