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The Print
17-05-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Himachal Pradesh prison department ranks second among small states in delivering justice: Report
It looks at four main areas which are Police, Judiciary, Prisons, and Legal Aid. Small states which have a population under one crore are ranked separately. The rankings are based on official government data collected over five years and consider factors like infrastructure, staffing, budgets, workload and diversity. The IJR is a detailed, data-based review of how well different states in India deliver justice. The report is prepared by a group of well-known organisations including DAKSH, CHRI, Common Cause, and TISS-Prayas. Shimla, May 17 (PTI) The Himachal Pradesh Department of Prisons & Correctional Services has secured the second position among small states for delivering justice, according to a report by the India Justice Report (IJR) 2025. Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services, Sanjeev Ranjan Ojha, said that Himachal Pradesh performed especially well in the prisons category. 'This shows the state's strong and well-organised approach to prison management, particularly in terms of staffing, infrastructure improvements, and rehabilitation programmes,' he said. DG also said that the department's key achievements include second rank among small states in delivering justice, strong performance in prison management with better staff-to-inmate ratios and lower occupancy than the national average, improvements in staffing of prison posts and attention to inmate welfare following the Model Prison Manual and its ongoing focus on healthcare, video conferencing facilities and legal aid services in prisons. He further said that the report appreciates Himachal Pradesh for consistently improving its performance compared to previous editions of IJR, especially after Covid when many states faced challenges in continuing justice reforms. PTI COR HIG HIG This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
Indian Express
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Knowledge Nugget: Why is the India Justice Report 2025 important for UPSC?
Take a look at the essential concepts, terms, quotes, or phenomena every day and brush up your knowledge. Here's your knowledge nugget for today. (Relevance: The IJR provides insights on the overall structure of the justice delivery system in India. It is the only comprehensive quantitative index using the government's own statistics to rank the capacity of the formal justice system operating in various states. These are important findings that will add value to your answer writings. Also, the judiciary forms an important section in UPSC Prelims.) Last month, the fourth edition of the India Justice Report (IJR) 2025 was published, which tracks each state's structural and financial capability to deliver justice. It was first published in 2019 with the support of Tata Trusts. The 2025 edition was undertaken in partnership with DAKSH, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and TISS-Prayas It uses the filters of human resources, infrastructure, budgets, workload, and diversity to assess the capacity of four core pillars of the justice system to deliver to mandates: police, prisons, judiciary, legal aid, and Human Rights Commissions. 1. On policing, the report highlights continued concentration of police machinery in urban areas, and a decline in rural police stations between 2017 and 2023. The police-to-population ratio remains at 155 police personnel per 100,00 population – well below the sanctioned strength of 197. This often translates into longer investigations and compromises public safety. Just 81 police per lakh in Bihar exemplifies the situation. 2. On the judiciary, the report highlights a 20 per cent increase in pending cases, crossing the five-crore mark; shortages in court halls; vacancies in the high courts and district courts that stand at 33 per cent and 21 per cent respectively. There is an increase in the average workload in district courts – 2,200 cases per judge, while case clearance rate is at 94 per cent. This leads to a slower pace of justice and erodes public confidence in the justice system. 3. In prisons, overcrowding continues undeterred, with some running at over 400 per cent occupancy. The average overcrowding in prisons stands at 131 per cent. Prisoners awaiting trial stand at 76 per cent. Their guilt is yet to be proven, and the period of detention is constantly increasing, with one in every four undertrials spending between one to three years in prison pending trial. 4. The average daily spend per inmate stands at a mere Rs 121. This is indicative of inadequate funding, infrastructure and reform – falling far short of the vision of the Model Prisons & Correctional Services Act, 2023. The report also mentions the Amitava Roy Committee on Prison reforms. 5. On legal aid, the report flags concerns over optimal utilisation of funds, uneven human resource deployment and shrinkage in community-based legal aid services like village legal services clinics (one clinic for 163 villages). The legal aid workforce includes 41,553 lawyers and 43,050 paralegal volunteers. 6. On forensics, the report highlights significant capacity constraints – chronic underfunding, outdated infrastructure, and acute shortage of skilled personnel. Similarly, state human rights commissions suffer from persistent vacancies in senior-most functionaries and lack robust complaint disposal mechanisms. 7. On the positives, the report highlighted that in the district judiciary, the share of women judges has increased to 38 per cent. 83 per cent of all police stations in the country have at least one CCTV camera. The government's spending on strengthening structural capacity saw improvement with increased budget allocations. Overall Ranking of Large and Mid-sized States 1. The IJR 2025 contains the rank of India across important indices, and one of the important indices mentioned in the report is the Rule of Law Index 2024, released by the World Justice Project (WJP). 2. India ranked 79 out of 142 countries in the Rule of Law Index. It ranks the countries on eight indicators: constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil Justice, and criminal justice. 3. In terms of delivering criminal justice, India ranked 89. According to the World Justice Project, 'an effective criminal justice system is a key aspect of the rule of law, as it constitutes the conventional mechanism to redress grievances and bring action against individuals for offenses against society.' 4. India ranked 111 on the factor of the Civil Justice of the WJP Rule of Law Index. According to the WJP, 'civil justice measures whether civil justice systems are accessible and affordable as well as free of discrimination, corruption, and improper influence by public officials. It also measures the accessibility, impartiality, and effectiveness of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.' Post read question (1) The Amitava Roy Committee is related to (a) Monterey Policy Committee reforms (b) Digital currency (c) Infrastructure improvement of railways (d) Prison reform (2) Consider the following statements: 1. In the fourth edition of IJR, Kerala ranked first in the overall ranking. 2. The report is published by the Ministry of Law and Justice biennially. 3. It uses the four pillars to measure the justice system — police, prisons, judiciary, and legal aid. How many of the above statements are correct? (a) Only one (b) Only two (c) All three (d) None (Source: indiajusticereport, worldjusticeproject) Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X. 🚨 Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for April 2025. Share your views and suggestions in the comment box or at
