Judges ready to give account of wealth: CJI

Chennai/ New Delhi: All hurdles for a Bill to make judges give information about their wealth and properties have been cleared.

The information will be confidential, but Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan on Saturday said judges would not oppose the Bill. "We have been already doing it -- judges declare assets to the Chief Justice of India when they are appointed as judges. We want it to be made into a law,” said Balakrishnan in Chennai.

"Failure to declare or declaring false details can be presumed to be a misconduct on the part of the judge and this can be a ground for removal of the judge," he was quoted by PTI as saying.

Balakrishnan said judges would declare their assets and update the information when they purchase property. Judges will give information about the assets of their dependants too.

Meanwhile, when asked if the news of a minister trying to influence a Chief Justice was true, Balakrishnan said that no judge was ever contacted by any minister.

On the issue of a minister - allegedly A Raja - tried to influence Justice Reghupathy.

"Apparently the press reported that the minister influenced the judge -- callled him over the telephone -- then I was a little worried whether a minister had contacted the judge --that is not a practice. So I made inquiries with the Chief Justice and came to know, no minister had contacted him over the telephone or personally met the Chief Justice or the judge concerned in respect of any pending cases," said Balakrishnan.

Government’s Bill ready

A Bill making it mandatory for High Court and Supreme Court judges to disclose their assets to the President every year will be introduced in Parliament by Tuesday, Law Secretary T K Vishwanathan said on Saturday.

The disclosure made by the judges about their assets to the president would be kept confidential in normal circumstances, but it can be accessed in case of any probe into judicial misconduct or impropriety against a judge and be made public in such situations.

The Bill for annual disclosure of the wealth of the judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts across the country was taken up for discussion by the cabinet on Thursday.

Asked about the status of the bill, Vishwanathan told IANS: "The Government is all set to introduce the Bill in Parliament latest by Tuesday, if not Monday.

"The Bill has already been approved by the cabinet and some loose ends are being tied," he added, while refusing to divulge features of the Bill.

Another senior law ministry official, however, told IANS that the proposed law envisages disclosure of assets by judges to their respective chief justices.

High Court judges would disclose their assets to their respective Chief Justices, while apex court judges would give annually the details of their assets to the Chief Justice of India, who, in turn would forward it to the President along with the details of their own assets.

Balakrishnan has ruled out make information about the judges’ property public, as he fears judiciary would then be harassed through frivolous petitions.