Shouldn’t Judges of the High Court and Supreme Court declare their assets and liabilities on a regular basis? For that matter, shouldn’t anybody authorised to deliver justice from a sub-magistrate upwards be accountable to the public? And if a sub-magistrate and others in the lower courts automatically have to declare their assets, why shouldn’t others at a higher level be equally treated?
The present controversy-now more or less resolved-is largely focused on judges of the High Court and the Supreme Court. Those who dispense law and justice are natural targets to corruption. In a democracy, the law cannot-and should not-differentiate between categories of law givers. In the world of justice dispensation, transparency is everything. Where law is concerned all individuals are equal. There cannot be exceptions. In the first place, the day a law-giver is appointed to the post, the process of looking into the person’s assets and liabilities must be strictly observed, year after year.
In the normal circumstances, many judges are recruited from the legal profession. Lawyers who have made their fortunes often opt for judgeships for reasons best known to them. Tradition must lay down that the day they are appointed they become liable for an investigation into their financial worth. As a well-known educationist, BM Hegde once said, how does one expect a judge, who was a lawyer the previous day change himself to fit his new clothes? Isn’t it correct to have the same level playing ground for all citizens? How can judges be considered more equal than the rest? Sadly, any law-giver, at any level, these days is under observation. There was a recent report of Transparency International-the global organisation to lead an anti-corruption campaign-that corruption in the lower judiciary in India is at high levels, computed by them at about Rs 25,000 crore per annum!
Some believe it is an under-statement. It is not the amount of under-the-table harvest that matters. What matters is professional cleanliness and that should be applicable from the lowest to the highest dispenser of justice. It all started off in February this year when the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform (CJAR) issued an Open Letter to Judges of all High Courts and the Supreme Court to publicly declare their assets. It said: “By doing so, they would be setting an example of transparency in the country which would then be emulated by other public servants in the country. Such voluntary disclosure of assets by Judges (without resort to Right of Information Act) would be applauded as an act of statesmanship by the people of this country, at a time when people have become cynical about the integrity of public servants. It would greatly advance the cause of transparency and probity in public life, which is the basis of the Supreme Court judgments”. Why wasn’t this an issue right from the start of Independence?
The idea probably never occurred to anyone. It was generally accepted that the judiciary was above board. In a sense, it was a reflection of a colonial mind-set when the Supreme Court had a British component. Unhappily the judiciary in recent times has lost some of its past aura. But consider the situation in the United States. The US congress enacted the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 which requires detailed financial disclosure by high level employees in all three branches of the Federal Governments. This federal legislation is complemented by a host of financial disclosure laws at both the state and local levels. The Ethics Act requires annual disclosure of financial information by the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, Federal Judges, Presidential appointees and other officials and employees earning at or above a specific payscale of with policy-making responsibilities.
According to available information, the required disclosures include the nature, source and amount of income, gifts and re-imbursements, assets and liabilities and transactions in real property and Securities. That is only fair. Even a law-giver at the lowest level should be expected to declare his assets and liabilities And this should be true of those who are getting appointed to the Indian Administrative Service as well. The usual custom-unless the presumption is wrong-is that the recruits are chosen strictly on merit. If in any particular year, the IAS requires, say, fifty new entrants, it is the top fifty (with due recognition of the status of SC/ST candidates) who rank in the conducted examination who will be enlisted.
What one wants to know is whether their antecedents are looked into. What are parents? And they economically secure or are they struggling in debts? Shouldn’t that be taken into consideration? The most damaging comment on the probity of IAS officers is one made by TSR. Subramanian in his path-breaking book GovernMint in India. Mind the word:GovernMint. It is self-explanatory. Subramanian, incidentally, talks with authority. He himself is a retired IAS Officer from the UP cadre and was Chief Secretary of the State and rose to the highest Civil Service position in the country: that of Cabinet Secretary and worked under three Prime Ministers in that capacity. His remarks on civil servants, the police et al are very disturbing. He refers to the “steep fall in standards of probity and integrity among the high civil service” and adds “it may not be possible to dispute this with any conviction”. His comments on the judiciary are equally shocking. Says he: “Like nearly every process and system in our democracy, the judicial process is also heavily tilted in favour of the rich.
Thus, in case after case, the richer protagonist has the stamina to fight a long-drawn battle over decades-his poor adversary gets knocked our fairly early in the process. These are expensive games played by the latter community under the direct eye of the honorable court-and at the expense of the poor litigant”. As Subramanian put it: “The Constitution does not merely demand a ‘fair trial’ or ‘due process’; it enjoins the judiciary to ensure that ‘justice’ in all that implies, is provided to the citizen”. That statement carries its own implications. The point is that judges come under suspicion even when a case is postponed. Corruption has many faces and that is why law givers have to be extra-careful in every little action they take, even with the best of motives and within legal rights. Honesty and Probity are not just virtues: They are the standards by which the judiciary is judged, as is the nation itself. To uphold them is to enhance the dignity and reputation of India for all times to come.
