Supreme Court judges to make their assets public, amid row over cash at Justice Yashwant Varma’s house

The move comes at a time when questions of probity are being raised after allegations that unaccounted cash was found at the residence of High Court judge Yashwant Varma after a fire on March 14. An in-house judicial inquiry is looking into the issue.

Justice Varma, who has denied any link to the cash allegedly discovered at his house, has been transferred to the Allahabad HC.

In September last year, The Indian Express reported that of the 749 judges in 25 High Courts at that time, only 98 judges – 13% of the total number of judges – had publicly disclosed their assets.

Data obtained under the Right to Information Act showed that over 80% of the 98 judges were from three High Courts: Kerala (37) Punjab and Haryana (31) and Delhi (11).

In 1997, a full court of the Supreme Court resolved to disclose assets of judges to the CJI. In a meeting chaired by then Chief Justice of India J S Verma, the Supreme Court adopted a resolution that stated: “Every judge should make a declaration of all assets in the form of real estate or investment held in their names, in the name of their spouses or any other person dependent on them, to the Chief Justice.”

In 2009, another full court resolved to declare judges’ assets on the court’s website, “purely on a voluntary basis”. However, since 2018, citing privacy concerns, the declaration of assets to the CJI has not been publicly shared.

In 2009, Justice Ravindra Bhat, who was then a judge of the Delhi High Court, had ruled that the office of the Chief Justice of India is a “public office” under the Right to Information Act and that the CJI’s office has a duty to disclose the assets of the CJI and other judges. The Supreme Court, in its administrative domain, had contested the High Court ruling.

In 2019, the SC ruled against itself and held that judges’ personal assets and liabilities are not “personal information”, upholding the High Court ruling.