After weeks of dilly dallying and attempting to nip things in the bud, the judiciary finally seems to be buckling to public opinion on probity and transparency when it came to the men-in-black!
A Collegian of Supreme Court (SC) judges on Wednesday have reportedly voluntarily decided to disclose their personal assets. It may be recalled that this decision comes after weeks of heated debate amongst the judicial fraternity wherein many judges including the Chief Justice of India (CJI) K G Balakrishnan’s dismissal of “probing eyes” on their assets.

Earlier, a Punjab and Haryana High Court judge had voluntarily made public the list of his properties while advocating setting up of an in-house mechanism within the judiciary to regulate its conduct. The judge, was the sole judge of a High Court (HC) to respond to a letter from lawyer Prashant Bhushan to judges in January which suggested that they should voluntarily disclose their assets.

Bhushan, in his letter had urged he had sent his letter to about 600 judges of various High Courts in the country, but only Justice Kannan declared his assets.
The judge who reportedly declared that he has Rs 1.03 lakh in bank deposits, investment of Rs 3.87 lakh and Rs 10.59 lakh as deposits in his wife’s name, was subsequently riled by many for being a “publicity seeker”.

The judge had made this disclosure days after a Karnataka HC judge wrote in a national news daily that it was a misnomer that the judges of superior courts are not ready to disclose their assets and the Chief Justice of India had no authority to speak for all judges of superior courts.

The present CJI had also recently said that there was no law required to make a declaration of assets to the public. The Judge also cited the example of neighbouring Sri Lanka, which passed Declaration of Assets and Liability Law (Act 1 of 1975) requiring judges, among others to declare their assets at the time of their appointments.

It is pertinent to note that many African countries have passed such legislation in the recent years to quell widespread allegations of corruption in high constitutional offices. India as such does not have any such law but SC judges have been declaring their assets since 1997 to the CJI at the time of their appointment as an apex court judge and thereafter every year as per a resolution passed by the apex court on May 7, 1997.

What however stumped many is the fact that Balakrishnan dismissed the public-interest arguments given by Karnataka high court judge D V Shylendra Kumar in favour of putting the declarations of assets by judges in the public domain.
Justice Balakrishnan instead went ahead and made a castigating personal attack on Kumar calling him a publicity seeker” and chiding him that ” judges should not be publicity crazy.” The CJI’s act of displeasure at Justice Kumar’s attempt at transparency does not augur good for judiciary as a majority of people in India still hold it in high esteem.