PANAJI
Goa has emerged as the “worst” performer in justice delivery among Indian States, according to the India Justice Report (IJR) 2025.
The recent report evaluates States based on a ten-point scoring system that covers four key parameters: police, prisons, judiciary, and legal aid.
And unfortunately, the coastal State has performed badly in all four parameters, especially legal aid. Compared to 2022, when the last report was released, on the police front, the ranking has dropped from 6th amongst the small States to 7th, while it has retained 7th position on parameters like prisons, judiciary and 2nd at Legal aid.
Goa scored a composite 3.51 out of 10, securing the lowest rank not just in the category of small States but among all Indian States -- with poor performance across all parameters. West Bengal with a score of 3.63 is at the bottom among the mid-sized States.
For police, Goa scored 3.89, 2.62 for prisons, 3.03 for judiciary and 4.41 score at legal aid parameter. However, compared to 2022, Goa has improved its performance on 29 indicators out of total 68.
What is more embarrassing is that the trend, based on the last five-year data ranks Goa again at the bottom with one of the worst performers with 2.89 composite score out of 10. The performance is poor among all the Indian States.
Out of 25 police indicators, divided into budget, human resource, workload, infrastructure and diversity, Goa has shown improvement in eight indicators. As far as prisons is concerned, of the total 16 indicators, the State improved in six indicators while seven each in case of Judiciary and Legal Aid, out of 14 and 13 indicators, respectively.
The IJR divides States into two groups: large and mid-sized States with populations over 10 million, and smaller States with populations up to 10 million. Among the mid-sized States, Karnataka topped while in the smaller states, Sikkim emerged as the best performer.
As per the data, till January 2025, the State has inadequate representation of women in the police force. Of the total police staff, only 10.8 per cent comprises women force, while at the officer level it stood at 16.3 per cent.
Interestingly, only 1.2 per cent of the women workforce is employed at prisons. While the legal aid has women representation of over 50 per cent, at the High Court it stood at 16. 2 per cent while 70 per cent at sub-ordinate courts.
Further, according to the recommended judge-to-population ratio of 50 judges per million citizens, Goa, with its population of approximately 15 million, currently functions with just 27 judges — 1 at the High Court level and 26 at the District and Subordinate Court levels, falling significantly short of the national recommendation.
The India Justice Report is a collaborative effort between several organizations, including Bengaluru-based think tank DAKSH, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and TISS-Prayas.
