Towards fixing India's flailing justice system

Old deficits — shortage of infrastructure, funds, manpower — plague the courts, police, and prisons. But there are a few bright spots in the mostly bleak picture

- Maja Daruwala

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. For India's justice system, does this mean it is designed for underperformance, inequity, and delay? Based exclusively on the government's own data, the recently launched fourth India Justice Report for 2025, like its predecessors, once again assesses the structural capacity of the police, judiciary, prisons and legal aid of 18 large and seven small states to deliver justice.

The report lays bare the reality of the system — short of money, infrastructure, and manpower. Reeling under impossible workloads and under-representative of the people it serves, it is too slow, distant, and difficult to be useful for far too many. It does what it can but is increasingly unable to deliver what is an essential public service.

State budgets are stretched and there is never enough money to resource the justice system adequately. Budgets mostly go to paying salaries leaving little for infrastructure, equipment, or skilling. Even when state GDPs rise, only a handful of states manage to increase their justice budgets in proportion. In truth, the financial cost of endless delay and dysfunction remains unquantified. The human cost is all too visible. From the lakhs of people waiting for their day in court, as victims or in civil, family and corporate disputes, to those trapped in jails without trial, victims of custodial violence, illegal demolitions, and arbitrary arrests, the price is paid in daily suffering and shattered lives.

Looked across time, justice deficits everywhere have piled up. One in every four justice system workers is missing: 31% vacancies among high court judges; 22% in police; and, one in three prison staff is absent. Community-embedded paralegals are diminishing. Police stations cover ever larger populations and square areas especially in rural areas and rural folk are increasingly forced to live with fewer and fewer legal remedies to rely on.