In a significant move aimed at boosting transparency, the Supreme Court of India has announced that all serving and future judges will disclose their assets on the apex court’s official website.

The decision follows a controversy involving Justice Yashwant Varma, after a fire at his Delhi residence allegedly revealed large sums of unaccounted cash. While the incident reignited public debate, the demand for asset disclosure among higher judiciary judges is not new.

Back in 1997, the Supreme Court adopted the Restatement of Values of Judicial Life, directing apex court judges to declare their assets to the Chief Justice of India, and High Court judges to their respective Chief Justices. These declarations, however, were to remain confidential and merely updated annually.

Public pressure eventually led to a shift in 2009, when the Supreme Court permitted voluntary public disclosure of judges’ assets. Yet, with no binding mechanism in place, actual transparency remained elusive.

An analysis of Supreme Court and High Court websites as of April 11, 2025, shows that only 11.94% of sitting judges across India have publicly declared their assets.

At the Supreme Court, 30 of the 33 judges have submitted their disclosures to the CJI, but the information has yet to be uploaded online due to technical issues.

Among the High Courts, just 95 of 762 judges (12.46%) have made their assets public. Alarmingly, 18 High Courts – including prominent ones like Allahabad, Bombay, Calcutta, Gujarat, and Patna – show no disclosures at all.

Some exceptions stand out. The Kerala High Court leads with 93% of its judges (41 of 44) disclosing assets, followed by the Himachal Pradesh (11 of 12) and Punjab & Haryana High Courts (30 of 53). In Delhi, only 7 of 36 judges have made disclosures.

Currently, there is no statutory requirement for judges to disclose their assets. The Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act, 1958, and its High Court counterpart from 1954, contain no such provision. All existing disclosures are voluntary, guided by Supreme Court resolutions.

In 2010, the UPA government introduced the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, which sought mandatory asset declarations by judges and their immediate families. However, the Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha and has not been reintroduced since.

In August 2023, a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice urged the government to legislate mandatory annual asset disclosures for judges. It pointed out the inconsistency in requiring election candidates to declare assets while exempting judges, who also hold public office and draw salaries from the exchequer.

The committee emphasized that voluntary compliance has failed and recommended making declarations legally binding.

Recent Developments

Responding to a parliamentary query from RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha, the government said it had referred the issue to the Supreme Court. A committee of Supreme Court judges reviewed the matter and noted that it was already addressed by a Constitution Bench in 2020. The committee recommended listing the names of judges who have declared assets to the CJI on the Supreme Court’s website—a suggestion that has since been approved and implemented