By Dilip Bobb
Last week’s declaration of assets by 21 of the 33 Supreme Court justices on the apex court’s website follows the decision of the full court to make assets public. The move comes in response to renewed scrutiny over the wealth of constitutional court judges following the alleged discovery of a large sum of cash at the official residence of Delhi High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma.
Justice Gavai, who will take over as the chief justice on May 14, has movable assets, including gold ornaments and jewellery worth Rs 5.25 lakh, his spouse has jewellery worth Rs 29.7 lakh and a cash deposit of Rs 61,320.
Justice Surya Kant, who will become the chief justice of India on November 24 this year, has a house in Sector 10 in Chandigarh, 13 acres of agricultural land in Panchkula, and a 300 square yard plot in Gurugram, among other immovable properties. He has fixed deposits worth Rs 4.11 crore, gold ornaments worth 100 grams and three valuable watches.
The most affluent among those who have declared their assets is Justice KV Viswanathan. He has investments of over Rs 120 crore and properties in Safdarjung Development Area and Gulmohar Park in Delhi and an apartment in Coimbatore.
Justice Viswanathan has also declared income tax details from the period 2010-11 to 2024-25 of over Rs 91.47 crore. However, that is explained by the fact that he had a lucrative, practice as a senior advocate before being elevated to the Supreme Court in 2023.
The declarations are laudable, but it actually dates back to a process called the Bangalore Declaration. In 2001, a group of senior judges and jurists from different countries convened under the auspices of the United Nations. They produced what came to be known as the Bangalore Draft Code of Judicial Conduct (often called the Bangalore Draft). This was an effort to create a universally acceptable statement of judicial ethics principles to guide judges in legal systems around the world. The “Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct” are named after the city then called Bangalore, where the Judicial Group on Strengthening Judicial Integrity held its second meeting in 2001. It was at this meeting that the principles were first drafted. The meeting recognized the need for universally acceptable standards of judicial integrity, and the document became known as the “Bangalore Principles”, later endorsed by various judicial forums.
The Judicial Group conducted extensive consultations with judiciaries in over 80 countries, ensuring that the principles were universally applicable. Further refinements of the Bangalore Draft led to the adoption of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct in 2002. These principles were later recognized by various international bodies, including the UN Commission on Human Rights (now the Human Rights Council), and provided a template for domestic judicial codes worldwide. The Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct laid down six core values to be followed by judges in the participating countries. These were: Independence, Impartiality, Integrity, Propriety, Equality, Competence and Diligence.
In the Indian context, the current declaration of assets follows a similar resolution in August 2009, when, under then Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, the Supreme Court decided to make judicial asset declarations publicly accessible. This decision was influenced by Karnataka High Court’s Justice Shylendra Kumar, who challenged CJI Balakrishnan’s opposition to public disclosures. However, the process stalled after a controversy arose over a judge listing “daughters’ marriage” as a financial liability, alongside concerns from judges with significant pre-bench legal earnings.
In 2019, a five-judge Supreme Court bench, including Justice Sanjiv Khanna, ruled that the chief justice’s office was a public authority under the RTI Act, reinforcing the judiciary’s commitment to transparency. Justice Khanna emphasized that judicial independence and openness should coexist, a sentiment later echoed by Justice NV Ramana, who became chief justice in 2021.
In fact, the formal disclosure of assets and liabilities dates back to a Supreme Court resolution on May 7, 1997, which mandated that judges declare their real estate holdings and investments, including those held by spouses or dependents. Initially confidential, these disclosures were made public for the first time in 2009. Now, amid renewed demands for transparency, the practice has been revived, this time with a firm commitment to public accountability.
The latest development comes in the wake of a recommendation made more than a year ago by Parliament’s Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, and Law and Justice, which called for legislation mandating the public disclosure of assets and liabilities by both Supreme Court and High Court judges. In December 2022, BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi, then chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law, called for mandatory disclosure of assets by judges, similar to the requirements for MPs, MLAs, and all-India service officers. What added the required urgency was the controversy involving Justice Yashwant Varma.
Elsewhere, the US Supreme Court has come under scrutiny recently over its financial disclosures. Financial disclosures for eight of the nine Supreme Court Justices were made public last year, revealing information about a gifted trip to Bali, free concert tickets to see Beyoncé, and nearly $1.6 million in book deals. The annual disclosures come as the court faces mounting pressure over its transparency and accountability measures, particularly concerning potential conflicts of interest and ties to affluent donors.
A string of revelations in recent years about some of the justices and undisclosed gifts has only intensified public scrutiny and raised questions about the impartiality of the judiciary. Justices are required to publicly disclose financial information each year to prevent conflicts of interest.
Justice Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court acknowledged for the first time that he accepted luxury travel from Republican billionaire Harlan Crow for previously undisclosed trips he had taken in 2019 to Bali and a private all-male club in Northern California. The two trips were at the centre of a ProPublica report last year exposing Thomas’ unreported luxury travel, triggering unprecedented scrutiny over the wealthy benefactors close to the justices and their commitment to ethics rules. The report claimed that Thomas and his wife took lavish trips paid for by Crow almost on a yearly basis for over two decades without disclosing them. According to the new disclosure forms, Crow and his wife provided food and one day of hotel lodging during Thomas’ trip to Bali in July 2019, and later paid for Thomas’ four-day stay at a private club in Monte Rio, California. Thomas explained in the document that the gifts from the Crows were “inadvertently omitted at the time of filing”.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson disclosed that she accepted four free tickets worth $3,711.84 from pop superstar Beyoncé to one of her concerts last year. Jackson, who was confirmed to the US Supreme Court in 2022, also accepted two pieces of art worth $12,500 to display in her chambers. She had the most outside income of any justice last year. Three Justices reported cashing in on book deals last year, totalling nearly $1.6 million in advances and royalties. Jackson reported the highest amount: an eye-popping $8,93,750 advance from Penguin Random House for her upcoming memoir.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is reportedly working on a legal memoir, disclosed that he received $3,40,000 from the Regnery Publishing company. Justice Neil Gorsuch reported $2,50,000 in royalties from HarperCollins for his upcoming book. Justice Sonia Sotomayor also reported $87,000 in book royalties and was also paid $1,900 for her voice performance in the kids animated show Alma’s Way. The US Supreme Court justices, like other government officials, are only allowed to receive less than about $30,000 in outside income, but book income does not count towards that cap, allowing the justices to enter into lucrative contracts with publishers. In contrast, the UK Supreme Court does not require judges to publicly disclose their assets or financial information.
Not many countries have taken the necessary step towards public disclosure of assets of members of the judiciary. Apart from Argentina, countries like the United States, Latvia, Mongolia and South Korea have laid down legal procedures for public disclosure of judges’ assets. South Africa has amended its Judicial Service Commission Act to provide for filing and public disclosure of judges’ assets. In countries like Philippines and Russia there are some restrictions about access to asset disclosures filed by the judiciary. Other counties like Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya and Thailand require judges to declare their assets, but these declarations are not accessible to the public.
In a recent publication of the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), new data suggests that in more than half of the 161 countries covered by the study, judges and prosecutors are required to disclose their income, assets and other relevant interests and activities. In the case of Supreme Court justices this applies in almost 60 per cent of countries.
In 2016, the first study commission of the International Association of Judges on Measures to Promote Integrity and Combat Corruption within the Judiciary endorsed “the practice of declaring conflicts of interest and the avoidance or declaration by judges of any affiliation with public causes which might engender a perceived or actual conflict”. It further specifically acknowledged the existence of both public and non-public registers of a judge’s assets and income in a significant number of countries and agreed that “it would be a good measure to prevent corruption”.
The Global Judicial Integrity Network, an initiative about to be launched by UNODC with the financial support of the State of Qatar, will provide a unique platform for judges around the globe to exchange good practices, support and advise each other and to develop tools and materials aimed to guide judiciaries in their efforts to strengthen judicial integrity and preventing corruption in the justice system.
The bedrock of judicial integrity remains the Bangalore code of Judicial Conduct. Resolution 23 of the United Nations’ Social and Economic Council promotes implementation of the Bangalore Principles by the judiciaries of all member states. In fact, the latest country to adopt judicial asset declaration by its Supreme Court justices is the Philippines which adopted the Bangalore Principles, adapting them to Philippine constitutional, legal, and cultural contexts. Bangalore, now Bengaluru, is known as India’s IT hub, but not many remember its contribution to judicial integrity.
—The writer is former Senior Managing Editor, India Legal magazine
The post Judge’s Assets and the Bangalore Declaration appeared first on India Legal.