Karnataka sixth in justice delivery among 18 big states

Karnataka is ranked sixth among 18 big and mid-sized states when it comes to justice delivery with Maharashtra and Kerala topping the list and Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state ranked the last, according to a new report.

Among the seven small states with population less than one crore each was topped by Goa and followed by Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, according to the India Justice Report (IJR) 2019, an initiative of Tata Trusts in collaboration with Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS- Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

The report said even the best performing states have been unable to score even 60% in their performance on capacity across police, judiciary, prisons, and legal aid. The ranking is based on measuring the capacity of police, the prison system, judiciary and legal aid in each state in terms of budgets, human resources, personnel workload, diversity, infrastructure and trends against its own declared standards or benchmarks.

Overall, Maharashtra scored 5.92 out of 10 followed by Kerala (5.85), Tamil Nadu (5.76), Punjab (5.53), Haryana (5.53) and Karnataka (5.11). Uttar Pradesh even fell behind the scores of smaller states with a score of 3.32.

Karnataka fell behind due to its poor performance in the judiciary in which it was ranked a lowly 16 while it ranked third in prisons, sixth in police and seventh in legal aid.

To Karnataka's credit, the report says, it is the only state to have very nearly filled officer-level reservations in all caste categories. While it has filled all quota posts in ST and OBC categories, the vacancies in SC category is only 4%.

"Nationally, a majority of states are unable to meet their declared caste quotas. Only six states and UTs—Daman and Diu, Meghalaya, Goa, Manipur, Gujarat and Kerala—had managed to meet or exceed their SC quota. Similarly, only Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Bihar, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana had managed to reach or exceed their ST quotas and only Meghalaya, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Assam and Karnataka had met their declared OBC quotas," the report said.

Only seven states and UTs utilized their entire prison budget, including Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh while no large or mid-sized state utilized its entire prison budget, with West Bengal having, utilized 99% of its budget, followed by Kerala (98%) and Karnataka (97%).

The report said vacancy is an issue across the pillars of police, prisons and judiciary, with only about half the states having made an effort to reduce these over a five-year period. "For instance, the country, as a whole, has about 18,200 judges with about 23% sanctioned posts vacant. Women are also poorly represented in these pillars, constituting just 7% of the police. Prisons are over-occupied at 114%, where 68% are undertrials awaiting investigation, inquiry or trial," it said.

"Regarding budgets, most States are not able to fully utilise the funds given to them by the Centre, while the increase in spending on the police, prisons and judiciary does not keep pace with the overall increase in State expenditure. Some pillars also remain affected by low budgets. India’s per capita spend on free legal aid—which 80% of the population is eligible for -- for instance is 75 paise per annum," it added.

RANKING – INDIA JUSTICE REPORT

	Overall Ranking	Police	Prisons	Judiciary	Legal Aid
Maharashtra	1	4	2	4	5
Kerala	2	13	1	5	1
Tamil Nadu	3	1	10	1	12
Punjab	4	3	16	2	3
Haryana	5	8	11	3	2
Karnataka	6	6	3	16	7
Uttar Pradesh	18	18	14	17	18

Score (Out of 10)

	Overall Score	Police	Prisons	Judiciary	Legal Aid
Maharashtra	5.92	5.52	6.89	5.96	5.43
Kerala	5.85	4.43	7.18	5.61	6.58
Tamil Nadu	5.76	6.49	5.23	6.99	4.65
Punjab	5.53	5.61	4.35	6.57	5.84
Haryana	5.53	5.14	4.79	6.23	6.09
Karnataka	5.11	5.32	6.50	3.76	5.22
Uttar Pradesh	3.32	2.98	4.42	3.70	2.50