Karnatakatops the list of states and Union Territories in providing access to and three other southern states figure among the best five, according to theIndia Justice Report2022.
TheIJR, which was released recently, said except for Delhi and Chandigarh, no state or Union territory spends more than one per cent of its total annual expenditure onjudiciarywhere the vacancy of judges in high courts stands at 30 per cent.
The IJR, an initiative of theTata Trustslaunched in 2019, said as of December 2022, the country had 19 judges for every 10 lakh people and a backlog of 4.8 crore cases. The Law Commission had suggested, as early as in 1987, that there should be 50 judges for every 10 lakh people in a decade’s time.
The statistics were shared in IJR which ranked states and UTs on various parameters like vacancies in judiciary, budgetary allocations, Infrastructure, human Resources, legal aid, condition of prisons, functioning of Police and state Human Rights commissions.