Defenders of the Law above the Law?

Something in a few-days-old newspaper lying in my room caught my attention. The headline said, “Bill to hide judges’ assets from RTI.”

One of the recent measures that has been helping to make public officials more accountable to the people is the Right to Information Act (RTI), which has been put to very effective use by socially conscious citizens.

However, the judges of the Supreme Court of India had been resisting the efforts to bring them under the purview of RTI. In particular, they had been resisting attempts to make them disclose their financial assets. The Chief Justice of India had been in the forefront of this resistance, citing reasons of confidentiality. The Government of India was siding with the judges, and was set to bring a bill in Rajya Sabha (that is the Upper House of Parliament) to keep the details of the judges’ wealth out of the public realm, said the news report. “If the bill goes through, then the high court and supreme court judges will be the only people exempt from public scrutiny of their assets,” the report continued, “a privilege not extended even to the president and the prime minister.”

Strange, I said to myself. Why is it necessary that judges’ wealth be kept secret - unless they have something to hide? And the government wants to protect them with the bill – which means the government too has a stake in it. Especially in the context of a number of judges in recent past being found corrupt, the proposed law in question would only encourage judges to be more corrupt.

Recent events have shown the impropriety of such a proposed law. A number of judges of High courts have voluntarily disclosed their assets and even written articles in support of disclosure – in a way standing up to the Chief Justice and the judges of the Supreme Court. Their action forced the Supreme Court judges to give in and agree to disclose their assets. And the Government blinked. It dropped the bill.

A couple of days ago, the Delhi High Court gave a verdict that the Chief Justice of India comes under purview of the RTI. Hurray for democracy! Hurray for the judiciary!

There is more! A day after the Delhi High Court verdict, jurists hailed it. Three former Chief Justices of the Supreme Court congratulated the Delhi High Court for the verdict, and asked the Supreme Court to accept the verdict and not challenge it.

I was glad to hear that one of the former CJI, Justice V. N. Khare reflected my own sentiments expressed earlier in this blog. He said: The Delhi High Court verdict “has upheld the dignity of the judiciary. If we were to hide anything, it would only give rise to suspicion that we have something to hide.” Right!!

Prometheus: Those who have power (that includes Supreme Court Judges) hold on to it, until it is wrested from them. That’s history. And those who are out of power will normally side with the powerless. That too is history.