Firm On Declaring Assets; Chief Justice, Too, Pondering On The Move New Delhi <http://bit.ly/lGgE>: The growing popular pressure for across-the-board transparency in public, appears to have blown judiciary's resistance to the demand for declaration of judges' assets, with a section of Delhi high court judges declaring their intent to make the disclosure on their own. The HC judges who voted for transparency at a full court meeting last week are determined to go ahead with the move despite reservations among peers who are still arguing what they call judicial exceptionalism. But even as the status quoists continue with the resistance, the move by the reformists, combined with the bold refusal of veteran constitutional lawyer Fali S Nariman to be the amicus curiae in the case arising from judiciary's challenge to CIC order for disclosure, promises to be the trigger for the Supreme Court to revisit the issue soon. Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan is learnt to be mulling a proposal to make it mandatory for judges of the HCs and the SC to declare their assets to the President, their appointing authority. This will be in sync with the practice in government, where employees declare their assets to their appointing authority. This goes hand in hand with protransparency groundswell in the Bar. Constitutional experts and senior advocates are fully in support of Nariman's views, which was intimated to the Delhi HC along with a blunt refusal to become the amicus curiae in the petition filed by SC challenging a Central Information Commission order to make public the fact whether or not judges periodically declared their assets. But, the debate ended in a stalemate with many opposing the idea.
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