Karnataka now tops Justice Delivery in India, Southern States Continue to Dominate, says 3rdIndia Justice Report

New Delhi: The 2022 India Justice Report (IJR), India’s only ranking of states on delivery of Justice in the country, announced here today, ranks Karnataka at the top of the 18 Large and Mid-sized states (with population of over one crore each), followed by Tamil Nadu (2020: 2nd), Telangana (2020: 3rd) Gujarat (2020: 6th) and Andhra Pradesh (2020: 12th). The list of seven Small States (population less than one crore each) was topped by Sikkim (2020: 2nd), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (2020: 5th) and Tripura (2020: 1st).

The India Justice Report (IJR) was initiated by Tata Trusts in 2019, and this is the third edition. Partners include Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS–Prayas, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and How India Lives, IJR’s data partner. 

Through a rigorous 24-month quantitative research, the IJR 2022, like the previous two, has tracked the performance of states in capacitating their Justice delivery structures to effectively deliver mandated services. Based on latest official statistics, from authoritative government sources, it brings together otherwise siloed data on the four pillars of Justice delivery – Police, Judiciary, Prisons, and Legal Aid. Each pillar was analysed through the prism of budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure, and trends (intention to improve over a five-year period), against the state’s own declared standards and benchmarks. This third IJR also separately assesses the capacity of the 25 State Human Rights Commissions (see SHRC brief for more).

The ranking of the 18 large-and mid-sized states is:

StatesRank 2022Rank 2020
Karnataka114
Tamil Nadu22
Telangana33
Gujarat46
Andhra Pradesh512
Kerala65
Jharkhand78
Madhya Pradesh816
Chhattisgarh97
Odisha104
Maharashtra1111
Punjab121
Haryana139
Uttarakhand1415
Rajasthan1510
Bihar1613
West Bengal1717
Uttar Pradesh1818

The ranking of the seven small states is:

StatesRank 2022Rank 2020
Sikkim12
Arunachal Pradesh25
Tripura31
Meghalaya47
Mizoram56
Himachal Pradesh64
Goa
73