Legal Aid, Women’s Safety Gain; Court Infrastructure Face Cuts

Hyderabad: The Union Budget 2026-27 presented a mixed outlook for India’s justice sector, with increased allocations for women’s safety, legal aid and digital integration, but reduced support for judicial infrastructure and judicial facilities.

Under the Nirbhaya Fund, ₹200 crore has been allocated for schemes related to women’s safety, matching the previous two years, marking a 33 per cent increase over the revised estimate of ₹150 crore for 2025-26. In addition, ₹91.03 crore has been allocated to Nirbhaya-funded projects; this is a sharp increase of over 200 percent over last year’s revised estimate of ₹29.58 crore. However, this year, no separate arrangements were made for the prevention of cybercrimes against women and children or for programs supporting Women’s Help Desks and the Fight against Human Trafficking.

Legal aid services have received a significant boost with the National Legal Services Authority (Nalsa) allocating ₹250 crore, the highest amount since 2018-19. This represents a 25 percent increase over the 2025-26 budget estimate. The total legal aid budget, including the Legal Aid Defense Advisory System, currently stands at ₹550 crore.

Digital justice initiatives maintained strong support. While the E-Courts Phase III program continues with an allocation of ₹ 1,200 crore, the Interoperable Criminal Justice System has increased by 83 per cent to ₹ 550 crore.

In response, there were disruptions in the physical judicial infrastructure. The centrally sponsored program for development of infrastructure facilities for the judiciary has been allocated 810 billion Indian rupees, down from last year’s 998 billion Indian rupees, the lowest allocation since 2022-23. The revised estimate for 2025-26 stood at ₹798 crore, which is around 20 per cent lower than the budgeted figure.

Funding for modernization of state police forces and Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems has been reduced from ₹ 587.97 crore to ₹ 450.54 crore. Forensic capacity shows uneven support: While ₹500 crore has been retained for modernisation, allocations for upgradation of Central Forensic Science Laboratories, including the National Forensic Data Centre, have fallen sharply by 82 per cent from ₹80 crore to 14 crore.

Prison reforms remain steady; The ₹300 crore earmarked for modernization remained unchanged from last year despite concerns of overcrowding. The support scheme for poor inmates has been reduced to ₹ 2 crore from ₹ 5 crore last year and ₹ 20 crore in 2024-25.

Experts have expressed concern about declining support for court infrastructure and forensic facilities, warning that both are vital to the timely delivery of justice.