All sensible people have undoubtedly hailed Delhi high court’s ratification of the verdict that office of Chief justice of India too should be under the purview of RTI act. But it’s not all. Unless the disclosure of judges’ wealth is made mandatory and subjected to scrutiny this act is unlikely to yield desired result. Now as situation stands, a judge may declare his quantum of wealth, only if he likes. So many of honoured judges might not feel like declaring their assets and if they do at all, it might be done perfunctorily as there’s no provision for cross checking their declaration. So it reduces to nothing but an eye wash.
It may be noted an appeal is likely to be made against the verdict of Delhi HC by office of CJI particularly because it empowers people to have an access to many affairs of supreme court those merit confidentiality in the interest of judiciary itself, as argued by Attorney general . However, popular opinion is against going in for contesting the land mark judgment in the interest of transparency in judicial process of the apex court that would go a long way to help people repose faith in judiciary and hold judges in high esteem.
Tranparency should not be kept confined to the remotest corner of one's heart;but it must be seen to be so, especially for a public servant.Peculiar scenario is: judiciary as a whole are in the habit considering themselves as a distinct entity not at all bound by the laws of the land,specially the higherjudiciary
ReplyDeleteWhy are they scared of disclosing their assests earned in lieu of rendering public service as members of judiciary. They are paid out of public exchequer.Have they so many things to shield from seeing the light of the day. Do they have some dark areas? For any dark areas the laws of the land throws search light and bring the residents of those secret havens indulging in dark deeds to book.Judiciary is assigned for this job by the people through their representatives in the parliament which enacts laws of our country.For their assignment they may insulate themselves.But as public servant they cannot be exempt from the operation of laws which also govern the public.It's needless to reiterate that in order to facilitate them to perform their jpbs certain privileges have been extended to them.It in no way make them aliens from other planets possessing extraordinary powers that could place them above the constitution which is the ultimate source of all rights duties and obligations for the people of this land.While framing the constitution, its chief navigator ,Dr B R Amedkar,perhaps reposed too much faith on its functionaries.Now we are aware fro the conscientious statements of former judges that corruption engulfs a sizable section of judiciary from lowest to the higher.Thanks to intensified movement for judicial transparency led by Shantibhusan et al.It must be kept in mind that assests acquired by public servants of all categories, whether elcted or appointed,
are from their known source of income that is their assignments either in executive legislature or judiciary.SO QUESTION OF HIDING their accumulations out of this omly source of
income belies all sorts of logic and reason.So disclosure of assests must be mandatory and should be open to public scrutiny.Any attempt to obfuscate the very pertinent question would certainly raise the basic tenets of honesty and integrity of the people trying to remain exempt.