Turning point

Over the past sixty-plus years,the one civil institution that,in India,has consistently received public admiration for retaining its dignity is the judiciary. And the judiciary has earned that admiration and trust time after time,for standing up for basic values and resisting political pressure. But admiration of this sort,however long-lasting,is dangerously fragile. And that is the context in which we should view the brouhaha surrounding the divisions in the higher judiciary on the issue of the declaration of judges assets.

Chief Justice Balakrishnan has admitted that there is no consensus on whether judges assets should be made public. He says that a consensus has to be developed. But even the Chief Justice must recognise that this is now a big issue; keeping a lid on it,as it were,is no longer possible. Even if it were true that the first visible stirrings of dissent come from those members of the higher judiciary more comfortable with the putting things in the public realm the writers of blogs,or of opinion articles this does not in any way mean that it will continue to be so limited in the future. More likely,disagreement will be expressed more openly.

Simply put,then,this is a hot-button issue,one on which the public in general has a bias in favour of transparency,and which the judiciary needs to recognise has the potential to undermine its credibility. Indias judges have done an excellent job of keeping institutional pride and credibility going in an era in which concerns are continually expressed about almost every other major state institution. It would be a shame if something the solution to which is so straightforward were to cause that enviable record to receive a knock from which it might never recover.