Infrastructure Of Justice: Ground Survey Of Women's Facilities In Delhi Courts

Conversations on judicial reform have traditionally centred on vacancies, pendency, case management, technology and budgetary allocations. While these issues remain important, they have largely overshadowed a more immediate question – what is the experience of those who enter courts and tribunals every day? The condition of the physical infrastructure that litigants, lawyers, judges and court staff has received little attention.

For an ordinary litigant, the experience of the justice system begins at the entrance to the court complex. It includes whether the building is accessible to persons with disabilities, whether women have access to clean and functional washrooms, and whether parents appearing before the court have access to basic facilities such as a creche. These are often treated as ancillary amenities. In reality, they form an integral part of access to justice.

Infrastructure as a Component of Access to Justice

One of the earliest judicial recognitions of the need for gender-sensitive court infrastructure came in Anindita Pujari v. Supreme Court of India, where the Supreme Court directed the establishment of a creche within its premises. The directions culminated in the creation of a state-of-the-art childcare facility.

Subsequently, there have been catena of proceedings where the Courts have taken into account infrastructural concerns. The Delhi High Court, in proceedings concerning Saket District Court, acknowledged what women litigants and advocates deal with routinely. Poor and unhygienic facilities do not affect everyone equally. They create barriers for women specifically, barriers that go unnoticed but are real. The Court directed that washrooms in the complex be kept clean, functional and properly maintained. In fact, in a survey conducted by the Supreme Court Bar Association, as many as 83.8% women advocates reported that accessibility to court premises helped their practice significantly or to some extent.

The Supreme Court took the matter further. In Rajeeb Kalita v. Union of India, while examining the State of the Judiciary report prepared by the Centre for Research and Planning, it found that around twelve High Courts had reported an acute shortage of toilets for judges, staff, advocates and litigants. Even where toilets existed, many were unusable.

The Court refused to treat this as a maintenance issue and held that access to proper sanitation is a necessary part of the right to life under Article 21. A court cannot speak of dignity while ignoring the conditions under which people are made to wait for justice. No litigant should have to choose between exercising a legal right and going without basic amenities for hours. Judges, lawyers and staff should not have to work in such conditions either.

Following this, the Supreme Court directed every High Court to carry out a full assessment of sanitation facilities across courts and tribunals - to identify deficiencies, provide separate washrooms for women, men, persons with disabilities and transgender persons, install sanitary pad dispensers, set up nursing rooms and child-friendly washrooms, create maintenance and grievance mechanisms, and back all of it with dedicated funding.

The issue has since moved beyond sanitation alone. On 19 June 2026, while hearing Sarika Tyagi & Ors. v. Union of India, the Supreme Court entertained a public interest petition concerning the absence of adequately equipped ladies' bar rooms and other essential facilities for women advocates across High Courts, district courts, tribunals and commissions. Taking note of these concerns, the Court observed that they "cannot be brushed aside as a matter of mere convenience" and held that the availability of such infrastructure bears a direct nexus with the guarantee of life and dignity under Article 21. Recognising the wider ramifications of the issues raised, the Court issued notice to the Union of India, all States and Union Territories, and requested the Attorney General for India, the Advocate Generals of all States and the Standing Counsel for the Union Territories to assist the Court. The obvious question, therefore, is what the position on the ground actually looks like. Existing nationwide studies provide one answer, while a fresh survey of Delhi's courts, tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies offers another.

How Serious Is the Problem?

In 2019, the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy carried out a nationwide assessment covering nearly 665 district court complexes. Fewer than forty per cent had washrooms that could genuinely be called functional, meaning running water, basic hygiene and regular maintenance. Nearly a hundred complexes had no separate washroom for women at all. Accessible sanitation fared worse still. In fact, the central argument of the report was that the increase in number does not necessarily means qualitative enhancement - a washroom that is locked, unusable or neglected is worth nothing.

As per the report Delhi came out as the best-performing jurisdiction in that assessment. That is worth pausing on, because if Delhi is the benchmark, it is worth knowing what the benchmark actually looks like.

A Closer Look at Delhi

To answer two questions, first, what the best-performing jurisdiction presently looks like, and second, how much progress has been made since 2019, a fresh survey of courts, tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies across Delhi was undertaken during 2025–26. This survey covered nearly sixty courts, tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies across Delhi, including the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court, and all six district court complexes.

To ensure that the survey captured not only the availability of infrastructure but also its usability, the surveyor was given the discretion to assess and rate the condition of women's washrooms based on their observations. While this necessarily introduces an element of qualitative judgment, it also enables the survey to capture aspects of functionality, cleanliness and maintenance that cannot be measured through numerical data alone.

In addition to washrooms, the survey examined the availability of sanitary napkin vending machines, creche and nursing facilities, dedicated ladies' bar lounges, Internal Committees constituted under the POSH Act and on-site medical facilities.

Washrooms: Present, But Rarely Functional

More than half the institutions surveyed could not provide women with a safe, functional and dignified washroom. Of the sixty institutions surveyed, thirty-three, or 55 per cent, received a “Poor” rating. Only two, the Supreme Court and the Competition Commission of India, were rated “Excellent.” The Delhi High Court and five others were rated “Good.”

At five complexes, including the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (East) and the Maintenance Court before the SDM, surveyors could not locate any publicly accessible women's washroom at all. At the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal, which functions out of a hotel, there was no women's washroom readily accessible on the floor where the Tribunal is situated. Similarly, at the Appellate Tribunal under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, one of the two women's washrooms was found locked at the time of the survey, effectively leaving only a single accessible facility. So, these formed one of the most shocking findings – where the complexes lacked washrooms at all.

Coming to the reasons behind the poor ratings, the surveyors' notes revealed a pattern of neglect across institutions. Common deficiencies included broken locks, non-functional flushes, dirty floors, inadequate lighting, the absence of soap, running water and toilet paper, and doors that did not shut properly. At the Maintenance Tribunal (North-West) in Kanjhawala, the women's washroom was found to have no lighting whatsoever, with water accumulated across the floor, rendering it both unusable and unsafe.

Numbers do tell us a very little story. Karkardooma District Court has 123 women's washrooms. It was still rated “Poor,” because a large number of them were damaged, unhygienic, or lacking basics like toilet paper and sanitary disposal. Saket District Court, with 50 washrooms, and Rohini District Court, with 46, received the same rating. Across all sixty institutions, there was no link between how many washrooms a complex had and how usable they were. Adding more toilets without maintaining them does not improve anything for the woman who has to use one.

The Facilities Around the Washroom

The survey also looked at five supporting facilities that matter directly to women in the justice system – sanitary napkin vending machines, creches, ladies' bar lounges, Internal Committees under the POSH Act, and on-site medical facilities.

Only seven institutions had sanitary napkin vending machines. Nine had creches. Fourteen had ladies' bar lounges. Twenty-one reported constituting an Internal Committee under the POSH Act. Eleven had some form of medical or paramedical facility. Overall, thirty-seven of the sixty institutions, representing 62 per cent of those surveyed, had none of these five facilities.

1. Maintenance Tribunal Khanjawala

Even where facilities existed, the surveyors' observations showed that their mere presence often masked serious deficiencies. Only five institutions, the Supreme Court, Delhi High Court, Saket District Court, Rohini District Court and Rouse Avenue Court Complex, provided all five facilities surveyed. However, each except the Supreme Court was accompanied by significant adverse observations. At Saket District Court, there was only one sanitary vending machine for a nine-floor chamber block. Surveyors also recorded foul-smelling and unclean washrooms, non-functional flushes, absence of toilet paper, poorly maintained ladies' bar rooms, and a creche where water had spilled onto the floor used by children.

At Rohini District Court, although vending machines had been installed on every floor, none were functioning, and water was found leaking from the ceiling into two women's washrooms. At Rouse Avenue Court Complex, sanitary vending machines had been installed but no sanitary pads were available in them, rendering the facility ineffective, while the creche was reportedly not operational because it was not being used.

2. Rohini District Court - Non-Functional Sanitary Napkin Vending Machine

The Delhi High Court illustrates a similar point. Although its washrooms were reported to be clean and the institution otherwise performed well, sanitary pads were unavailable and vending machines had been installed only on one or two floors in each chamber block rather than being uniformly accessible. The survey therefore indicates that recording the existence of a facility is only one part of the assessment; equally important is whether it is functional, adequately maintained and meaningfully accessible to those who require it. The survey also found that most sanitary napkin vending machines were coin-operated. In an increasingly cashless environment, this substantially reduced their accessibility and practical usefulness.

The same pattern emerged with respect to Internal Committees under the POSH Act. Twenty-one institutions reported having constituted an Internal Committee. However, only four were found to have committees that were actually known to the women who might need to approach them, suggesting that in most institutions the mechanism existed formally but lacked practical visibility.

3. Dwaraka District Court

How Different Institutions Fared

Every Water Disputes Tribunal surveyed received a “Poor” rating and scored zero out of five on the survey's composite index. Maintenance and Rent Tribunals followed closely behind, with 90 per cent receiving “Poor” ratings and most lacking even basic supporting facilities. Consumer Disputes Commissions also performed poorly, with nearly three-quarters rated "Poor." Even several of District court complexes, including Saket, Rohini, Dwarka, Tis Hazari, Patiala House, Karkardooma and Rouse Avenue, received poor washroom ratings despite comparatively greater institutional infrastructure. Only the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court consistently stood apart in terms of overall conditions.

Field notes from the survey

It was revealed that poor ratings were driven not merely by the absence of infrastructure but by persistent failures of maintenance and usability. At the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (X), birds had nested inside the women's washroom through a broken window, rendering the facility unhygienic. Additionally, an oversized ventilation opening fitted with an exhaust fan severely compromised users' privacy.

4. District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum (M Block Azad Bhawan)

5. District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (X)

6. Karkardooma Court (Locked women washroom)

At Dwarka District Court, surveyors found mosquito infestations in both the ladies' bar room and the creche. Several washrooms were under construction or closed, there was no washroom inside the ladies' bar room, sanitary napkins were unavailable, and the creche caretaker stated that repeated complaints about the cramped facility, including complaints had produced no remedial action.

Across institutions, the observations repeatedly documented facilities that existed only in a nominal sense: vending machines without sanitary pads, machines that did not work, creches that were effectively non-operational, and washrooms rendered unusable by poor maintenance.

7. District Maintenance Tribunal Rampura, Delhi

8. District Maintenance Tribunal Rampura, Delhi (Inside Ladies Washroom)

9. District Maintenance Tribunal Rampura, Delhi

The Overall Picture

More than half of the sixty institutions surveyed received "Poor" ratings for their women's washrooms. Nearly two-thirds lacked every one of the five supporting facilities examined. The number of washrooms bore no relationship to their condition.

In most institutions, the physical infrastructure already exists. What is consistently absent is regular maintenance, accessibility and institutional accountability. This is, therefore, not merely a survey of facilities for women. It is an assessment of how accessible and inclusive our justice system truly is. Court complexes are workplaces for judges, advocates and staff, and places of hope, anxiety and dependence for millions of litigants. Without the basic infrastructure necessary for dignified participation, the constitutional promise of equal access to justice remains only partially fulfilled.

The findings also highlight a broader problem of prioritisation. Delhi allocates 4.08% of its budget to the judiciary, whereas Maharashtra and West Bengal allocate only approximately 0.31% and 0.4%, respectively. If Delhi can be considered a relatively well-resourced benchmark, these disparities indicate that judicial infrastructure and services in rural regions across other states are likely to face even greater constraints.

In any event court infrastructure is not a peripheral administrative concern but a core component of justice delivery. The quality of a justice system is measured not only by the judgments it delivers, but also by the conditions in which people are expected to seek, participate in and administer justice.

Limitations: The survey reflects conditions as they existed at the time of inspection (December 2025–February 2026) and does not account for subsequent changes. Although based on a structured methodology, the assessment of washroom conditions necessarily involved an element of qualitative judgment. The findings are intended to identify systemic trends across institutions rather than evaluate individual institutions.

Author Dr. Anindita Pujari is Senior Advocate practicing at Supreme Court of India& Shaileshwar Yadav is an Advocate practicing at Supreme Court of India. The study and survey were undertaken by the authors, with field surveys conducted by Ms. Radhika Mahopatra, Advocate. Views are personal.