Judges of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, have decided to publicly disclose their assets and liabilities in a push for transparency.

The decision comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding the alleged discovery of a huge stash of unaccounted cash at the residence of a high court judge, Justice Yashwant Varma.

Thirty of the 33 apex court judges have uploaded the details on the Supreme
Court website so far.

An official resolution released late on Thursday night said: “The Full Court of the Supreme Court of India had resolved that Judges should make a declaration of their assets on assuming office and whenever any acquisition of a substantial nature is made, to the Chief Justice. This also includes declaration(s) by the Chief Justice of India. Placing the declaration of assets on the Supreme Court website will be on a voluntary basis.”

In 1997, under then Chief Justice J.S. Verma, the Supreme Court had adopted a resolution asking all judges of the top court to disclose details of their assets and liabilities to the Chief Justice of India at the time of their elevation. The same principle was applied to the judges of high courts, who were obligated to disclose details of their assets to the chief justice of their high court.

There was, however, no mandate to make such disclosures public.

In 2009, the Supreme Court decided that all apex court and high court judges could disclose their assets and liabilities on their courts’ official websites if they so wanted.