Only 12% of sitting Supreme Court and High Court judges have made their assets public

The Supreme Court of India recently said that all its serving judges and the judges appointed in future will disclose their assets to the public on the top court’s website. .The decision came in the wake of the controversy surrounding the allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma. A fire had allegedly led to the discovery of a massive pile of cash at the judge’s Delhi residence. However, this is not the first effort by the top court to make judges of the higher judiciary make their wealth public. In 1997, the Supreme Court adopted a resolution known as “The Restatement of Values of Judicial Life,” requiring every apex court judge to declare their assets to the Chief Justice of India. High Court judges were asked to give the same details to the Chief Justices of their courts. These details were not to be made public but were to be updated every year.Twelver years later, pushed by the public scrutiny and criticism, the Supreme Court decided to disclose the judges’ assets to the public. However, the Court said that it would be a voluntary decision by every judge. .Here are the details about how voluntary disclosure has brought little transparency to the system, what the law says and how the parliament has reacted to it. .How many judges disclose their assets to the public? .A review of the data available on the websites of the Supreme Court and 25 High Courts across the country suggests that as of April 11, 2025, only 11.94% of the sitting judges in India have disclosed their assets to the public. While 30 of the 33 Supreme Court judges have disclosed their assets to the CJI, the details are yet to appear on the apex court website, reportedly due to some technical glitches.The situation in the High Courts remains troubling. Only 95 of the 762 (12.46%) serving High Court judge's assets are available on their courts’ websites. There are 18 High Courts in the country with no information about their judges’ wealth. This includes the Allahabad High Court, the country’s largest High Court, which currently has 81 serving judges, along with the Bombay, Calcutta, Gujarat, and Patna High Courts, among others. Kerala High Court leads the way here with 41 of the 44 (93%) of its judges declaring their assets. However, this came after the Supreme Court's recent decision.Meanwhile, 11 of the 12 justices of the Himachal and 30 of the 53 judges of the Punjab & Haryana High Court have made their details public. In Delhi, seven of the 36 judges have chosen to do the same. The figures for Madras stand at five and for Chhattisgarh at one..Read the detailed list below..What does the law say? .As per The Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Condition of Services) Act, 1958 and the High Court Judges (Salaries and Condition of Services) Act, 1954 and rules after those acts, there is no provision to declare assets by judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts.All the declarations made by the judges are voluntary and as per Supreme Court’s resolutions. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government introduced The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill in 2010 requiring judges to declare their assets and liabilities, and also that of their spouses and children.It was intended to replace the Judges Inquiry Act of 1968 but on the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha, the Bill lapsed and was never presented thereafter. .The Parliament's view.A parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievance and law and justice had in August 2023 said that judges must disclose their assets and liabilities. The committee said that the Supreme Court has “gone to the extent of holding that the public has a right to know the assets of those standing for elections as MPs or MLAs. When so, it belies logic that judges don't need to disclose their assets and liabilities”.“Anybody holding public office and drawing a salary from the exchequer should mandatorily furnish annual returns of their property,” the report stated. It recommended that the government must bring a legislation to make the disclosure mandatory for the judges. “As the last resolution of the Supreme Court on the declaration of assets by Judges on a voluntary basis is not complied with, the Committee recommends the Government to bring about appropriate legislation to make it mandatory for Judges of the higher judiciary (Supreme Court and High Courts) to furnish their property returns on an annual basis to the appropriate authority.”.Progress after the report.On March 27, 2025, in response to a question by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Kumar Jha, the Central government told the Rajya Sabha that after the parliamentary committee report, the issue of mandatory declaration of assets was taken up with the Supreme Court of India. The reply by law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal stated that the top court constituted a committee of judges of the Supreme Court to examine the issue. The Supreme Court committee said that matter has been extensively examined and dealt with by the Constitution Bench in 2020 and the procedure adopted by the court was in conformity with the judgment. The apex court’s committee proposed that the official website of the Supreme Court should display the name of the judges, who have made declaration of assets to the Chief Justice.It added that the proposal has been approved by the CJI and the names of the judges have been displayed on the website of the Supreme Court.