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:
| States | Rank 2022 | Rank 2020 |
| Karnataka | 1 | 14 |
| Tamil Nadu | 2 | 2 |
| Telangana | 3 | 3 |
| Gujarat | 4 | 6 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 5 | 12 |
| Kerala | 6 | 5 |
| Jharkhand | 7 | 8 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 8 | 16 |
| Chhattisgarh | 9 | 7 |
| Odisha | 10 | 4 |
| Maharashtra | 11 | 11 |
| Punjab | 12 | 1 |
| Haryana | 13 | 9 |
| Uttarakhand | 14 | 15 |
| Rajasthan | 15 | 10 |
| Bihar | 16 | 13 |
| West Bengal | 17 | 17 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 18 | 18 |
The ranking of the seven small states is:
| States | Rank 2022 | Rank 2020 |
| Sikkim | 1 | 2 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 2 | 5 |
| Tripura | 3 | 1 |
| Meghalaya | 4 | 7 |
| Mizoram | 5 | 6 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 6 | 4 |
| Goa | 7 | 3 |