In a move towards greater transparency, 21 out of the 33 sitting judges of the Supreme Court have made their asset declarations public. The details were published on the Supreme Court’s official website on Monday.
This development follows the full court meeting of the Supreme Court held on April 1, during which it was decided that judges’ asset statements would be placed in the public domain. The move followed increasing worries about suspected corruption in the judiciary, especially in relation to the Justice Yashwant Varma scandal.
Although the asset information of most of the judges has now been posted, comments from 12 judges are yet to be published. According to a note from the Supreme Court:
“Statements of assets of Judges already received are being uploaded. Statement of assets of other Judges will be uploaded as and when the current statement of assets is received.”
This marks a significant shift from the previous practice, where only the names of judges who had submitted their declarations to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) were listed on the website, without disclosing the actual content of the declarations.
The judges whose asset details have been made public include:
- Justice Sanjiv Khanna (Chief Justice of India)
- Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai
- Justice Surya Kant
- Justice Abhay S. Oka
- Justice Vikram Nath
- Justice M.M. Sundresh
- Justice Bela M. Trivedi
- Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha
- Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia
- Justice Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala
- Justice Pankaj Mithal
- Justice Sanjay Karol
- Justice Sanjay Kumar
- Justice Rajesh Bindal
- Justice K.V. Viswanathan
- Justice Ujjal Bhuyan
- Justice S. Venkatanarayana Bhatti
- Justice Augustine George Masih
- Justice Sandeep Mehta
- Justice Manmohan
- Justice K. Vinod Chandran
The remaining 12 judges—whose asset statements have yet to be uploaded—are:
- Justice JK Maheshwari
- Justice BV Nagarathna
- Justice Dipankar Datta
- Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah
- Justice Manoj Misra
- Justice Aravind Kumar
- Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra
- Justice Satish Chandra Sharma
- Justice Prasanna Bhalachandra Varale
- Justice N Kotiswar Singh
- Justice R Mahadevan
- Justice Joymalya Bagchi
Specifically, the issue of judges publishing their assets has been debated since 2009, when the Supreme Court’s entire court had consented to voluntary returns. Yet the effect was still confined in nature until now.
The current move is part of an overall drive to increase accountability and rebuild public confidence in the judiciary.