Judges don’t need to divulge assets: SC

The supreme court may voluntarily make it a rule, and require the govt that the assets of all public authories are to be put on the concerned websites including that of judges.

There should be some motive behind seeking information of the assets of judges, but since all government servants furnish information regarding their assets and liabilities to the institution they serve, the institutions can themselves provide this information to the seeker and set the issue to rest.The institutions need not give information of the mode of acquisation.But what if some thief wants to know this information to act upon it?Who will protect the judge from the thief?Hence the fine line should be drawn while providing information.

The Judiciary's members constitute authority of Constitution, as rightly observed by the bench dismissing the petition, and as such, they were not statutority obliged to divulge information regarding the assets held by them. The politicians, after reading this, in their turn are likely to jump gleefully and say that neither are they, as constituting the People's Representative wing of our democracy, obliged to reveal the secrets of their assets! They would say this forgetting that it is they who have the power to administer and distribute power, and in that process, tend to misuse their office [held by them as trust] for embezzlement, agrandizement, and the like, treating what is given as matter of their responsibilities as personal favours that can put some money or rewards in kind into their private coffers!

Now again the justices of supreme court have come out with a bizzare ruling on themselves that they do not need to divulge their assets. Isn't this another example of how those judges are away from reality. It would take a couple of journalists to check the holdings of those judges and publish. Let those justices once again use judicial diktats to put behind erring investigators. They put behind bar Arundhati Roy and they will do it again to protect their vested interests in the name of judicial supermacy.

All of us, who resort to immoral and illegal practices are a part of human race and knowingly and unkowningly we may resort to illegal ways for ammasing a fortune. I do not see any reason why these people may be kept out of public eye and purview.We know of several such people owning properties disproptionate to their incomel.All are equal before the eyes of the law, I had read once! Maybe, the phrase in general and the prinicple in particular has changed with the times.

There is no reason for the Judges to be above any laws of the country. In a democracy they are equal to anyone. They must obey the rules which even the MPs who create the laws must obey. If they are against it, it simply means they are corrupt and that is the reason they are trying to hide their assets. Some judges are taking bribes. Recently Justice Bhalla, who is now the Chief Justice of Chattisgarh according to newspaper reports has taken bribes from the Reliance Corporation and the land mafias. But he got away with and still the judge.this is open corruption. If the judges are corrupt, they cannot receive any respect but just like any police officers will be objects of fear, hate and insults.

In my view constitutional authorities are not above the law. A Judges, being a constitutional authority, is not above the law. It is time government must clear this point.

Former apex court Chief Justice S P Bharucha had said that about 20 per cent of judges could be corrupt. If any judge think that being accountable to the public is something wrong, then the people doesn't need such dubious judges who has least faith in democracy.