Take India Justice Report’s Latest Findings As A Wake-Up Call

The prolonged incarceration of undertrials undermines the fundamental principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ leading to severe psychological trauma, stigmatization, and loss of livelihood for the individuals involved

Dr BR Ambedkar once said “justice has always evoked ideas of equality, of proportion of compensation. In short, justice is another name of liberty, equality and fraternity...A just society is that society in which an ascending sense of reverence and descending sense of contempt is dissolved into the creation of a compassionate society.”

Justice to all irrespective of their caste and religion is one of the key mandates of our Constitution. Therefore, we must not ignore for heaven’s sake what has been highlighted in India Justice Report-2025 (IJR-2025).

Its key findings include a 22 per cent vacancy rate among judges, with High Courts experiencing a 30 per cent shortfall, leading to over 5.2 crore pending cases nationwide, some exceeding 30 years in duration.

Prisons are overcrowded at 130 per cent capacity, with 77 per cent of inmates awaiting trial. The police force faces a 29 per cent vacancy in officer positions and maintains a low female representation of 11.75 per cent. Financial constraints are evident, as most states allocate less than one per cent of their annual budgets to the judiciary, and per capita spending on free legal aid stands at just Rs 3.87 annually.

Yet Karnataka leads among large states in justice delivery, while Uttar Pradesh ranks lowest. The urgency for systemic reforms to enhance efficiency, inclusivity, and accessibility within India’s justice system has become the need of the hour.

The IJR-2025, the fourth such comprehensive assessment published by Tata Trusts in collaboration with a consortium of civil society organisations, provides a sobering assessment of how the country’s justice system continues to falter on key indicators, especially for the most marginalised.

The police force continues to be overwhelmingly male and dominated by privileged caste groups. Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Class (OBC) personnel form 59 per cent of the police workforce but 61 per cent of them remain concentrated at the constable level. At the level of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and above, the presence of officers from marginalised groups was found to be drastically low.

Several states have just one legal aid lawyer for every 10,000-30,000 eligible citizens, and lack of training, poor working conditions, and delayed payments continue to undermine the effectiveness of the legal aid system. What is more troubling is the sharp and continuing rise in the population of undertrials. As per the latest figures, 77.1 per cent of all prisoners in India are undertrials, up from 69 per cent a decade ago. This increase reflects not only procedural delays but also deep-rooted biases in the criminal justice system.

What is more agonizing is the fact that among undertrials, the overrepresentation of Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims is stark. These three communities together form a disproportionately high share of undertrials compared to their population. For instance, while Muslims constitute about 14.2 per cent of the population, they make up over 17.4 per cent of undertrials. Similarly, those from SC and ST communities together make up more than 32 per cent of the undertrial population.

At the cost of repetition, I would like to state what Droupadi Murmu said in her valedictory address on November 26, 2022 at the Constitution Day celebration organized by the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi: “It is said that jails are getting overcrowded and there is a need to set up more jails. Are we moving towards development? What is the need to set up more jails? We need to reduce their numbers," she said. "You need to do something for these people. Who are these people in jail? They do not know the fundamental rights, preamble or the fundamental duties,” she added. She said these people are in jails for slapping somebody or for similar minor offences, and they were slapped with legal provisions even as some of these provisions do not apply in such cases.

President Murmu had said that people do not get their family members freed from jails as they feel their properties and utensils at home would have to be sold (in the process).

On the other hand, there are some people who do many things, even kill others, but they are roaming free, she said. One doesn’t know the kind of efforts being made to ensure that undertrials facing minor charges are released from jails. The prolonged incarceration of undertrials undermines the fundamental principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ leading to severe psychological trauma, stigmatization, and loss of livelihood for the individuals involved. Families often face financial ruin, and children of undertrials are pushed into cycles of poverty and neglect. Access to justice must be a cornerstone of our democracy.

The glaring underrepresentation of Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in India’s judiciary deepens the crisis of exclusion in a country already grappling with entrenched social inequalities. When only five per cent of district judges are from STs, 14 per cent from SCs, and just 25.6 per cent from OBCs — with similarly dismal numbers in High Court appointments — it reinforces systemic biases and limits the ability of marginalized communities to see justice as accessible and impartial. In a society where discrimination is multifaceted — spanning caste, class, and gender — the lack of diversity on the bench not only erodes public trust in the judiciary but also perpetuates a cycle where the lived realities of disadvantaged groups remain invisible within legal interpretations and outcomes.

Therefore, a firm policy of reservation in the judiciary is the only remedy. We must change our policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

In a participatory democracy, the participation of SCs, STs and OBCs in the judicial system must be ensured. The Karia Munda Report-2000 and EM Sudarsana Natchiappan Committee offer more than enough reasons to make our higher judiciary inclusive.

PV Sawant had observed in his judgement in the Mandal Commission case that a small section of the society, which is 10 per cent of our total population, controls, directs and regulates all aspects of life, mostly to suit their own interest. This has resulted in the concentration of the power in the hands of a select social group. But then who cares!

(The writer is a senior journalist, author and columnist. The views expressed are strictly his personal)