UT has 3rd-highest women share in police force in country

Chandigarh is among the top three position holders in the country when it comes to the share of women in the police force. With 22.5 per cent of the total cops from the fairer sex, which is almost double the national average of 12.3 per cent, the city has ranked the second best among the eight Union Territories (UTs), including Delhi.

While Ladakh has topped the country with the highest 29.6 per cent share of women in the police force, Bihar stood second among all states and UTs in the country with the fairer sex forming 23.7 per cent of its police staff.

The 2025 India Justice Report (IJR), India’s only ranking system for states/UTs on delivery of justice in the country, was released yesterday. It has provided key insights into the capacity of the justice system of Chandigarh. The IJR was initiated by Tata Trusts in 2019, and this is the fourth edition. The partners include the Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS–Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. How India Lives is the data partner.

According to the report, a copy of which is with The Tribune, the per capita spending on police in Chandigarh was Rs 5,902 in 2022-23, which was more than four times the all-India average of Rs 1,275.

The constable vacancies in the Chandigarh Police were 17.3 per cent and that of officers 15.4 per cent.

The share of women at the officer level was 8.4 per cent, which was almost on a par with the national average of 8 per cent. Almost 50 per cent of the posts of both SC and OBC officer were vacant in the UT police. All police stations have at least one CCTV camera and 95 per cent of the city’s police stations have women help desks. On the judicial front, against the national average of Rs 182, Chandigarh’s per capita spending on judiciary was Rs 746. At the district court level, the data showed no vacancy among judges with 43.3 per cent share of women judges. It was also able to fulfil its quota for SC and OBC reservations within the district judiciary. However, 37.1 per cent of the cases were pending for more than three years.

At Burail Model Jail, the only prison in the city, the officer vacancy was at 10 per cent, while half of all correctional staff posts were vacant. Women form only 4.9 per cent of the prison staff. There was at least one video-conferencing facility available. The occupancy rate was 107 per cent with 70 per cent inmates being undertrials.

On the legal aid front, 38 paralegal volunteers were on rolls in the city as of September 2024. More than half of them were female with 24.5 per cent of the panel lawyers also being women. The prison has at least one legal service clinic while 95 per cent of the cases received at the permanent lok adalat were settled.

Fourth edition of report comes after two-year research

Through a 24-month quantitative research, fourth edition of the India Justice Report -2025, like the previous three reports, has tracked the performance of states/UTs in capacitating their justice delivery structures to effectively deliver mandated services. Based on the 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 is analysed through the prism of budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure and trends against the state/UT’s own declared standards and benchmarks.

Woman SSP

Among the top three position holders, Chandigarh has a woman Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP). A 2013-batch Punjab cadre IPS, Kanwardeep Kaur is the second woman SSP of Chandigarh, serving here since March 2023. She assumed charge from the 2008-batch Punjab cadre IPS, Nilambri Vijay Jagdale, who was the first woman SSP in the UT from 2017 to 2020.

Chandigarh