Thus, any income received from any unlawful source, e.g., bribery, smuggling, cannot be considered. Secondly, if the provisions of any law, rules or order require the giving of intimation of receipt of any income by a public servant to any authority, then it should havebeen properly intimated. For example, the receipt of an income may be required to be intimated in the Income Tax Return. If such intimation is not given then such income cannot be considered.

An income which thus does not fulfil both these conditions cannot be considered for the purposes of deciding the offence of disproportionate assets. The importance of this provision lies in the fact that for most public servants, in addition to the requirements under laws such as Income Tax Act, there are various rules requiring intimations about their financial transactions to be given to authorities from time to time. For example, the All India Services (Conduct) Rules require the IAS and IPS officers to file a return at the time of their first appointment about all their assets and liabilities. Subsequently, they are required to submit a return every year showing details of their immovable properties.

They are also required to give advance intimation about every transaction in respect of an immovable property.Even transactions in movable properties beyond a specific value, information about loans taken, or any family member joining any private trade, business or profession have to be intimated. This list is only illustrative. These requirements are more strict when the transaction or dealing in question is with a person who has any official dealings with such officer. Similar rules normally exist for other public servants.

All monetary transactions of a public servant are thus kept under watch since his appointment. A major advantage of such rules is that if a public servant has acquired any assets in a surreptitious manner without intimating to his superiors even though required under these rules, then any income generated from such property will not be considered in his favour in view of the aforesaid definition of the known sources of income requiring intimation thereof. It thus helps immensely in successfully making out a case of disproportionate assets.

The requirement of timely intimations about thefinancial transactions debars a public servant from claiming any new or undisclosed source of income at a subsequent stage of investigation or trial of a case of disproportionate assets.

It is ironical that no such rules exist for ministers, MPs, MLAs or other elected representatives who are public servants now, when almost all other categories of public servants are subject to such rules. There have been some voluntary efforts by some politicians in this direction, e.g., the present Prime Minister asking all ministers and Members of Parliament of his party to file statements of assets owned by them and their spouses.

However, such efforts are not sufficient for the simple reason that they are voluntary, individual, unorganised and scattered and are not binding. There is no legal sanction behind them and no penalty or disadvantage in the case of default. No machinery exists to ensure compliance with them. More often than not, such efforts remain only on paper and are basically meant for the publicconsumption in the nature of a public relations or image-boosting exercise. They are more in the form of noble declarations made at the solemn occasion of a party coming into power and to be conveniently forgotten subsequently.

In view of the ongoing elections to the Parliament and several State Legislative Assemblies when several politicians will be becoming public servants as MPs, MLAs or ministers, it is high time that detailed rules are framed with sufficient legal sanction, either in the form of some enactment or some rules under the authority of a valid law such as Representation of People Act, to ensure that all ministers, MPs, MLAs, other elected representatives and other private persons holding posts under statutory bodies, public sector undertakings and the like must comply with the following requirements: