It does good to see some of the seniormost judges in the country declaring their assets to the public. Even without the long struggle by activists and public crusaders for transparency of the judiciary through the Right to Information Act, judges, on the basis of democratic principle, must have felt the need to declare their assets. But by emphasizing that such disclosure is “voluntary” — that is, the judges need not have made it at all — the exercise is given an aura of nobility, almost as if accepting the requirements of transparency is optional for particular groups of public servants. That is not surprising, since the Supreme Court itself has reportedly opposed the exercise of the RTI in the matter of the disclosure of judges’ assets. Perhaps strong traces of feudal and religious traditions influence Indians’ perception of judges, ideally the impartial wielders of life and death, as above and beyond the reach of democratic requirements with which everyone else must comply. This attitude was reflected with some irony in the bill regarding the declaration of judges’ assets brought in the Parliament by the Union law minister, M. Veerappa Moily, in August. The bill made the disclosure mandatory but secret, thus preserving the judges’ obscurity and distance from the public while assuring the public of their transparency. Even the government seems to have mixed up special privilege with dignity, and that too in the case of the higher judiciary which must necessarily be seen as the most transparent of all. The Opposition forced the withdrawal of the bill, but the battle in the Delhi High Court over judges’ transparency is not entirely over.

That an overwhelming majority of the judges of the Supreme Court have set an example before their peers and before the country has certainly added to the higher judiciary’s dignity and stature. Under the current circumstances, the voluntary disclosure carries an important message. But it will not be enough if and when the practice is established. To make transparency meaningful, the disclosure of assets must be mandatory, with an affidavit declaring the veracity of the wealth details. There is no reason for the form of the declaration to be different in the case of a special group. The debate over the declaration of judges’ assets has been raging on and off since 1997. It is strange that it should be a subject of controversy at all.