Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 26 (IANS) In a landmark move, the Supreme Court Wednesday decided to make public the assets of all its judges and put up the information on its website at the earliest.
The apex court took the decision at a full court meeting of its judges, under the chairpersonship Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, top sources in the apex court said.

The meeting that lasted for over two hours saw unanimous consensus among the apex court judges to declare their assets at the earliest.

The judges felt that as they had already been declaring the assets to the chief justice of India, they hardly had anything to hide about.

Accordingly, there was no point in giving an impression that the judicial fraternity of the apex court was against disclosing their assets and courting needless controversy, the sources added.

The judges passed a resolution that the details of their assets, which are already available with the office of the Chief Justice of India in varying formats, would be tabulated in a uniform format and placed on the apex court website at the earliest, the sources said.

The apex court’s decision came within days of a Karnataka High Court judge writing a full-page opinion piece in an English daily, contending that the chief justice was not empowered to speak on behalf of the high court judges, many of whom favoured making their assets public.

Karnataka High Court’s Justice Shailendra Kumar had contended in his write-up that Chief Justice Balakrishnan in his public statement had given the impression that many high court judges were against disclosing their assets.

But with Chief Justice Balakrishnan managing to evolve a consensus among the apex court judges to disclose their assets, judges of the various high courts would now be under the moral obligation to follow the suit and declare their assets, felt several lawyers.

Hailing the apex court’s progressive decision, Subhash Chandra Aggarwal, who had first moved the Central Information Commission for disclosure of judges’ assets, told IANS: “Had the apex court taken this decision earlier, they would have avoided a needless controversy.”

“Though a trifle late, it’s the correct decision,” he added.