India's Justice Crisis: 50 Million Pending Cases and Counting
India's judicial system has over 50 million pending cases across district courts, High Courts, and the Supreme Court. The average lifespan of a case in an Indian court stretches to years, sometimes decades. Undertrial prisoners — people who have not been convicted of any crime — make up over 75% of India's prison population. These are not abstract statistics. They represent real people trapped in a system that moves too slowly to deliver what it promises.
Yet media coverage of judicial pendency and delayed justice is sporadic at best. A landmark Supreme Court verdict makes headlines, but the grinding, systemic failure that defines everyday justice for most Indians rarely gets sustained attention. When it does, coverage often follows political lines — cases involving opposition leaders get amplified by certain outlets while being minimized by others, and vice versa.
The Structural Problem
India has roughly 21 judges per million citizens, compared to over 100 in many developed nations. Vacancy rates in High Courts regularly exceed 30%. The National Judicial Data Grid shows cases pending for over 30 years in some courts. These structural deficiencies are the real story behind every "justice delayed" headline, but they rarely get the context they deserve in mainstream reporting.
What This Feed Does
- Aggregates coverage of delayed justice cases, wrongful detentions, and custodial deaths from 50+ sources
- Tracks judicial appointment delays, court infrastructure issues, and legal reform proposals
- Highlights stories where the justice system's failures have real human consequences
- Uses AI to flag systemic failure and rights violation indicators in coverage
The Justice Denied feed exists because accountability journalism should not stop at the powerful. The justice system itself — its delays, its failures, its structural inadequacies — deserves the same scrutiny that The Balanced News applies to every institution.
