Not good! K'taka drops from 6 to 14 in justice delivery

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: This is not good news for a state which has always adered to the principles of justice and fair play. According to the India Justice Report released recently, Karnataka has fallen to 14th rank in 2020 from 6th rank in 2019 in terms of overall justice delivery.

However, the state has topped the list in terms of policing. The fall in the state's overall ranking has been affected by low indicators in the prisons, judiciary and the legal aid department. A handful of experts and policymakers investigated the findings revealed by the report with respect to Karnataka alone at an event recently held in the city titled ‘Justice capacity in Karnataka – a data-driven perspective.’

It was noted that the overall ranking drop might have occurred due to incomplete data and the rise to the first rank in policing was attributed to the cultural and social ethos carried forward by the police department They noted that despite good ranking, the state has a long way to reach its optimum in terms of women’s representation in the civil police force as it stood at 12.34 percent only in 2020.

There are over 600 women sub-inspectors (SI) in 1,054 police stations, while there were 453 stations without women SIs. Despite regional data being unavailable, the representation of SC/ST/ OBC communities in the police force has been satisfying. However, there is a need to increase the budget on training and the number of stations.

A researcher presented the results of a perception survey, which highlighted the lack of satisfaction among the public regarding policing. It also noted the perception of religion and caste prevalent among people vis-a-vis the police department. Forty nine percent of the police personnel surveyed believed that Muslims were prone to committing crimes.

Pratap Reddy, the Bengaluru commissioner of police, said that there is a need for more research into why caste biases are still prevalent despite there being satisfactory representation of the SC/ST/ OBC communities. He added that in the past three years, eight forensic labs and mobile labs have been set up for scientifically trained officers to collect evidence