By Rana Ajit, IANS,
New Delhi : A bill making it mandatory for high court and Supreme Court judges to disclose their assets to the president every year will be introduced in parliament by Tuesday, Law Secretary T.K. Vishwanathan said Saturday.
The disclosure made by the judges about their assets to the president would be kept confidential in normal circumstances, but it can be accessed in case of any probe into judicial misconduct or impropriety against a judge and be made public in such situations.
The bill for annual disclosure of the wealth of the judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts across the country was taken up for discussion by the cabinet Thursday.
Asked about the status of the bill, Vishwanathan told IANS: “The government is all set to introduce the bill in parliament latest by Tuesday, if not Monday.
“The bill has already been approved by the cabinet and some loose ends are being tied,” he added, while refusing to divulge features of the bill.
Another senior law ministry official, however, told IANS that the proposed law envisages disclosure of assets by judges to their respective chief justices.
The high court judges would disclose their assets to their respective chief justices, while the apex court judges would give annually the details of their assets to the Chief Justice of India, who, in turn would forward it to the president along with the details of their own assets.
The disclosure could be used for probe in cases of judicial misconduct charges against a judge and such details could be made public too, the official said.
After its introduction in parliament, the bill is likely to be referred to a parliamentary panel for detailed examination.
The process of enacting the law to ensure greater transparency about the judges’ assets was set in motion after a query posed to the Supreme Court registry seeking disclosure of the assets of the apex court judges.
The query had been posed under India’s new transparency law, the Right to Information Act, 2005.
As the apex court registry refused to divulge the information, the registry’s decision was challenged before the Central Information Commission, which ruled Jan 6, 2009 in favour of the applicant.
The apex court subsequently went in appeal before the Delhi High Court challenging the CIC ruling. The lawsuit is still pending at the high court.
But amid the mounting criticism of the judiciary’s reluctance to disclose the judges’ assets, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan has agreed to ask judges to disclose their assets in case the government wants it and make a law for it.
With the judiciary shedding its reluctance on this matter, the government has finally decided to enact the law for the purpose.