New Delhi: A high court judge in Chennai has offered to become the second in the country to declare his assets. However, the chief justice of India has stated that most judges don't want to do this.
Does this mean the judge vs judge battle is becoming bigger and more public? "Every high court judge has the freedom to declare assets... but as far as the Supreme Court is concerned, we have to reach consensus", says, K G Balakrishnan, the Chief Justice of India to NDTV.
What's at stake is a new law for judges. Parliament believes that like politicians, judges should be obliged to share details of their wealth under the Right to Information Act.
Not surprisingly, a section of judges disagrees, arguing that their wealth should be disclosed to the President of the country (for Supreme court judges), and to the chief justice (for high court judges).
Leading the team of judges who want to go public with their wealth, is K Kannan, a Punjab and Haryana High Court judge. He declared the assets owned by his wife and him, and has also blogged on the issue.
The chief justice retaliated by calling Kannan a publicity-seeker. That hasn't stopped a second judge, this time from Chennai, from volunteering to share his assets.
So what happens next? Experts believe the majority of judges will not follow this example unless they're made to. " The issue has been going in for one year. Parliament will have to make a law," comments Prashant Bhushan, Convenor of the Committee for Judicial Accountability.