India Justice Report 2022: Odisha Climbs One Slot Up But Slips In Policing & Legal Aid

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Bhubaneswar, Odisha has bettered its position by one slot among 18 large and mid-sized states in ‘India Justice Report 2022’ of Tata Trusts, which ranks states, having more than one crore population, on police, judiciary, prisons and legal aid.

The state has been ranked 10th against 11th in 2020. It had, however, fared better in 2019 with the seventh rank.

Odisha is behind Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, placed at 9th, 7th and 5th positions respectively, with a score of 5.16 out of 10 in four parameters. It is ranked 4th, a drop in one position since 2020, under the police pillar, and placed at 11th and 10th position in prisons and legal aid pillars respectively, in comparison to 9th and 8th respectively in 2020.

The India’s justice system, however, as a whole remained plagued by low budgets while the state saw justice being delayed due to vacancies in police officers’ level and judges in higher courts. The vacancies in other categories of the delivery system also remains a cause of concern.

According to the report, there was a 28.4 per cent vacancy in police officers level till January 2022. The correctional staff vacancies in the state stood at 41.6 per cent till December 2021 and the vacancies for medical officers in prisons was 61.7 per cent during the same period.

The five-year average growth of the total Odisha budget is 8.6 per cent, while the budgetary allocations to police, prisons and judiciary is 7.8 per cent, 0.7 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively, it added.