India’s judiciary continues to grapple with a staggering caseload, with over 5 crore cases pending across subordinate and high courts as of January 2025, according to the India Justice Report 2025, released on April 15. Between 2020 and 2024, pending cases rose by nearly 20%. Alarmingly, 61% of high court cases and 46% of district court cases have been pending for more than three years. Meanwhile, judge vacancies at the high courts and district courts remain high, hovering around 33% and 21% respectively.
Kerala emerged as the best-performing state in the judiciary pillar among states with populations over 10 million, followed by Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Rajasthan showed the sharpest improvement, climbing 11 ranks to sixth, aided by higher spending, better judge-to-population ratios, and reduced vacancies. The report also reveals that over 12% of all cases have been stuck for more than a decade. In states like Bihar, Meghalaya, and West Bengal, over 50% of district court cases are older than three years—with Bihar alone recording 71% such pendency.
The IJR is a collaborative initiative involving DAKSH (Bengaluru), Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and TISS-Prayas. It tracks structural and financial capacity across the justice system in all 36 states and Union Territories, measuring parameters like budgets, human resources, infrastructure, workload, and diversity across the police, judiciary, prisons, legal aid, and Human Rights Commissions.
Vacancies in the Judiciary
As of early 2025, judge vacancies stood at 33% in high courts and 21% in subordinate courts. Some high courts, such as Allahabad, had over 50% vacancies. Staff shortages also persist—13 high courts reported administrative vacancies between 20% and 50%.
India has only 15 judges per 10 lakh people, far below the Law Commission’s recommendation of 50 judges. In January 2025, there were 21,285 sitting judges across all courts, against a sanctioned strength of 26,927.
India averages one high court judge for every 18.7 lakh people and one subordinate court judge for every 69,000. In the Madras High Court, each judge serves around 12 lakh people. Only the high courts of Sikkim, Tripura, and Meghalaya are operating with a full complement of judges.
This has a direct impact on the case clearance rate (CCR)—the number of cases disposed of in a year. In 2024, CCR in subordinate courts rose to 96%, with 18 states disposing of more cases than they received. High courts lagged, averaging a CCR of 94%.
Judges remain overburdened: each district court judge handles around 2,200 cases, and each high court judge manages about 1,000. In Karnataka, judges manage nearly 1,750 cases; in Kerala, 3,800; and in Uttar Pradesh, 4,300.
Gender and Caste Representation
Women constitute 37.4% of all judges in India—14% in high courts and 38% in subordinate courts. Between 2022 and 2025, gender diversity increased by just 1% in high courts and 3% in lower courts. Of the 21,253 judges at high court and district court levels, fewer than 8,000 are women (106 in high courts and 7,852 in district courts).
Only Telangana and Sikkim have exceeded the 33% benchmark for women in high courts. Uttarakhand, Tripura, and Meghalaya have had no women judges in their high courts since 2018.
On caste representation, Karnataka is the only state that fully meets SC, ST, and OBC quotas. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana meet OBC and SC quotas, while Gujarat and Odisha fulfil just 2% of their ST quota. Tamil Nadu also has the second-highest percentage of reservation implemented in the OBC category at 50%.
Legal aid system struggles
Although legal aid budgets have increased and the Legal Aid Defence Counsel System (LADCS) has been rolled out in over 600 districts, infrastructure like paralegal volunteers (PLVs) and village legal aid clinics are collapsing.
Between 2019 and 2024, the number of PLVs dropped by 38%, with some states like Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu witnessing declines of over 70%. The number of village legal aid clinics has also fallen sharply—from over 14,000 in 2017–18 to just 3,659 in 2024. As a result, each clinic now serves an average of 163 villages, with Karnataka and Jharkhand reporting over 800 villages per clinic.
Despite this, Karnataka topped legal aid rankings among large and mid-sized states, followed by Punjab and Uttarakhand. Karnataka’s jump from 16th in 2020 to 1st in 2025 is attributed to consistent budgetary support, adequate staffing, and a strong PLV network.
The gender report card for legal aid is more encouraging: women comprise 31% of DLSA secretaries, 28% of panel lawyers, and 42% of PLVs. However, the number of transgender PLVs plummeted—from 587 in 2022 to 139 in 2024. Since 2022, states have begun collecting data on transgender PLVs.
Lok Adalats disposed of 52% of the 22.5 lakh cases taken up in 2023–24. However, performance varied across states—Telangana and Delhi cleared over 90% of cases, while Gujarat disposed of just 2%.
The report concludes that India’s legal aid delivery remains “severely underfunded and stretched,” and warns that gaps in rural outreach, workforce shortages, and fund underutilisation risk “undermining the very objective of equitable access to justice.”
SHRCs struggling to function
India’s State Human Rights Commissions (SHRCs)—tasked with protecting and promoting human rights—continue to suffer from severe staff shortages, low autonomy, and a lack of transparency. SHRCs are “chronically disabled” by lack of personnel and financial support, the report says.
Only 10 out of 23 assessed commissions had a full bench with a chairperson and members. Jharkhand, Haryana, Telangana, and Karnataka had no sitting chairpersons or members. Jharkhand, despite receiving over 900 complaints, disposed of zero cases in 2023–24 due to a complete lack of adjudicating and investigative staff.
Odisha had the highest case clearance rate in 2022–23 at 236.3%, while Tamil Nadu reported the lowest at 16%.
The findings also reveal that critical vacancies persist across investigation wings, with seven states operating at over 50% vacancy levels. Three states—Jharkhand, Sikkim, and Andhra Pradesh have no separate investigation wing at all. The report warns that using police personnel from state cadres undermines independence, especially in cases of custodial abuse or rights violations by state actors.
SHRCs also appear to be dismissing cases en masse: in 2022–23, over 50% of complaints were disposed of “in limine”, meaning they were rejected outright without inquiry. In West Bengal, for example, 93% of cases were dismissed at the threshold. Tamil Nadu disposed of only 16% of its over 15,000 complaints, with 91% rejected in limine.
The report highlights an overall case clearance rate of 83%, but calls it “misleading,” pointing out that very few cases actually go through full adjudication or result in concrete recommendations like compensation or disciplinary action.
The report also found that no state has a woman chairperson, and only 10% of executive staff are women. Women are mostly concentrated in lower administrative roles, with just six states reporting over 30% women in the workforce.
Further, only 4% of total cases were taken up suo moto, that is voluntarily by the commissions themselves, raising concerns about their proactive functioning. In 2023–24, only 1,923 cases were initiated suo moto, with Madhya Pradesh accounting for 1,373 of them.
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