Justice for all sounds utopian despite the $ 5 trn economy quest

Things have certainly changed a lot for them over the years but the pace of all-round metamorphosis has been very slow. So has been the speed and capacity of the country’s legal framework in imparting justice – which must neither be delayed nor denied, irrespective of the circumstances

Justice has a great role to play in ensuring wholesome human development. It is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030, which is aimed at promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, ensuring justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Justice – social, economic and political – is non-negotiable in every situation and is of critical importance in a country, which is a conglomeration of diverse social and cultural ethos. Justice becomes a vital cog in the wheel of governance if the problem of disparities, inequalities, poverty and discrimination is acute.

As a nation, India has made remarkable strides across fronts in the last 75 years, thanks to the progressive and inclusive spirit of our Constitution, a great asset for us. In certain areas, however, huge gaps still persist and need to be filled up sooner than later. One of them is the dispensation of justice through a legal framework, which is affordable, transparent and swift.

The recently released India Justice Report-2022 (IJR-2022) conveys a lot to all stakeholders, including policy makers and powers-that-be at every level. It tells us where we stand as a nation so far as delivering justice is concerned. The report shows how and why the poor are the biggest victims of the legal system. Over 80 per cent of India’s population comprises those who are socially and educationally backwards, scheduled castes and tribes. Poverty is quite rampant among them. A whole lot of affirmative measures have been initiated to empower them.

To be fair to every successive government, things have certainly changed a lot for them over the years but the pace of all-round metamorphosis has been very slow. So has been the speed and capacity of the country’s legal framework in imparting justice – which must neither be delayed nor denied, irrespective of the circumstances. Delivery of prompt justice requires a robust judicial mechanism, time-bound investigations and a collective will power of all stakeholders to act fairly and swiftly.

One should recall the apt observations made by President Draupadi Murmu while addressing an august gathering that included the Chief Justice of India Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju and Chief Justices of various high courts. Recalling the time when she was chairperson of the Standing Committee of Odisha’s Home Department and her visit to various jails in the state, she said that she had suggested certain jail reforms. She revealed that though some things did change, the kind of changes she was aiming for could not come about.

“Just think about those languishing in prisons for years. They know nothing about the Preamble to the Constitution of India, about their fundamental rights and their fundamental duties. No one has any concern for them. Their families cannot bring them out of prisons as everything they own is already sold to meet the expenses of fighting their cases in courts,” said President Murmu

According to IJR-2022, prisons are over-occupied at over 130 per cent, while more than two-thirds of the prisoners – over 77 per cent – are awaiting completion of investigation or trial. Certainly, the solution does not lie in increasing the number of prisons but reforming legal processes and putting in place a robust system to dispose of cases of petty offences swiftly. This has to be done on a priority basis. As per the Prison Statistics India-2021, a report of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the number of convicts in jails between 2016 and 2021 decreased by 9.5 per cent whereas the number of under-trial inmates increased by 45.8 per cent. With three out of four prisoners being under-trials, the problem of overcrowding of prisons is essentially an under-trial issue. As of December 31, 2021, around 80 per cent of prisoners were confined for periods up to a year. An overwhelming 95 per cent of under-trials released in 2021 were granted bail while a mere 1.6 per cent was released on acquittal. It shows that the sluggish pace at which trial courts work to reach a final decision cannot keep up with the increasing number of under-trials.

Inclusivity is an equally important aspect of our judicial ecosystem. Since social biases and prejudices – whether driven by caste, religion or political considerations, are perceived or believed, rightly or wrongly, as a major determiner in many matters, the issue of fair representation to different social groups in lower judiciary has also been flagged by the IJR-2022, while their negligible presence in the high courts and the Supreme Court has already caught the attention of the Central government.

According to the report, Karnataka remains the only state to have consistently met its quota for SCs, STs and OBCs positions both among police officers and the constabulary. The report says: “In the judiciary, at the subordinate and district court level, no state met all the three quotas. 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.”

Not complying with the spirit of affirmative measure, which is at the core of our Constitution and an instrument to deal with century-old multiple disparities arising out of a multitude of discriminatory social acts practiced for ages, is a matter of serious concern. If Karnataka can top the list of States and Union Territories in providing access to justice, why should others lag behind? Why except for Delhi and Chandigarh, no other State or Union Territory spends more than one per cent of its total annual expenditure on judiciary where the vacancy of judges in high courts stands at 30 per cent? The IJR has pointed out that 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. For 140 crore people, India has about 20,076 judges with about 22 per cent sanctioned posts vacant.

Similarly, the share of OBCs, SCs and STs in the state police forces is inadequate and not in proportion to their population. Women are only about 11.75 per cent in the police force, despite their numbers doubling in the last decade. We have only eight per cent women police officers. About 29 per cent of the officer positions are vacant. The police-to-population ratio is 152.8 per lakh as against the international standard of 222. One in four police stations does not have a single CCTV. The national per capita spend on judiciary stands at Rs 146 while on police is at Rs 1151. If increase in spending along with inclusivity is the need of the hour, justice delivery must be treated as an essential service.

By 2030, we must ensure as a member of the comity of nations and, more importantly, as a commitment to itself, that every citizen has access to justice through effective, accountable and an inclusive institutional mechanism. Craving for justice is getting louder as India marches fast to be a $ 5 trillion economy.

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