Govt looks to make it must for judges to declare assets

The Centre is working on a proposal to make it mandatory for all judges of the Supreme Court and high courts to declare their assets annually and has sought social status data of all serving judges pertaining to their class/category to assess social diversity in the judiciary.

- Abraham Thomas

This information was revealed in an action-taken report submitted to the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday by a Parliament standing committee that was considering implementation of its 133rd report on the subject, "Judicial processes and their reforms".

The committee chaired by BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi had sought the response of the Department of Justice on an array of issues concerning the judiciary, of which one related to mandatory disclosure of assets. Dealing with the same, the department in its response told the committee that the government has proposed framing rules to make declaration of assets by judges mandatory. The 30-member parliamentary committee also included Mahesh Jethmalani (BJP), Vivek Tankha (Congress), P Wilson (DMK) and Kalyan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress).

The report reproduced the Centre's response that said, "Based on the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, this Department is proposing to frame Rules under the High Court Judges Act, 1954 and Supreme Court Judges Act, 1958 to lay down a procedure for making statutory provisions in the Rules for Declaration of Assets by the Judges of the Supreme Court and

High Court Judges on their initial appointment and thereafter every year by the due date." This is not final yet as the government has initiated consultations with the registry of the Supreme Court to know its views on the matter. The response is awaited.