Chennai: Chief Justice of India K G
Balakrishnan on Saturday said failure to furnish details of assets
or declaring false details by Judges would amount to
"misconduct", which could be a ground for their removal.
"Failure to declare or declaring false details can be
presumed to be a misconduct on the part of the judge and this
can be a ground for removal of the judge," the CJI, who is in
the city to inaugurate a guest house for judges, said.
Responding to queries on the proposed Judges Assets Bill,
which seeks to make it mandatory for judges of higher
judiciary to declare their assets, Justice Balakrishnan said,
"we have been already doing it... judges declare assets to the
Chief Justice of India when they are appointed as judges. We
want it to be made into a law."
However "these are not subject to provisions of Right to
Information (RTI). We don`t want judges to be harassed," he
said without elaborating.
The CJI had recently said there was no need to put the
assets and liabilities of judges in public domain.
Under the proposed bill, High Court judges will have to
disclose their assets and liabilities before the Chief Justice
of their respective High Courts. The High Court Chief Justices
will send details of their assets to the CJI.
s
Supreme Court judges will have to declare their assets to
the Chief Justice of India as per the proposed bill.
To a question on allegations that a Central Minister
tried to influence Madras High Court Judge Justice R
Reghupathy in a marksheet scam case, Justice Balakrishnan
reiterated that nobody had spoken to the judge.
"I was concerned after seeing media reports and inquired
the matter. No minister called him.. nobody called him (on
phone)," he said.
Bureau Report
