Editorial: Equality before the law

Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan's contention that, being a Constitutional authority, he is outside the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act is strange, since it is not in keeping with the high standards prescribed by the higher judiciary. This is more so since it comes at a time when the judiciary is increasingly under attack for corruption as well as for being opaque in the manner in which it deals with judges who are under a cloud. Indeed, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice has just come out with a report saying that the entire process of appointing judges was secretive and needed to be opened up, bringing back the earlier situation where the executive had a say in the appointment and postings of judges. Whether this would be a good move is the subject of a larger debate, but the short point here is that disclosing the assets and liabilities of judges, which is what triggered off the current debate about whether the judiciary is covered by the RTI, will go a long way in helping the public know that the judiciary is clean as a whistle. After all, if those fighting elections are asked to declare their assets, asking those in charge of maintaining the law to follow suit can hardly be seen as undermining their authority. If anything, there is a case for making disclosure more stringent, by asking for the disclosure of assets of more family members, and valuing assets more realistically at current rather than historical value "" anyone familiar with real estate prices knows it is impossible to buy real estate at the values disclosed in most such disclosures at election time.

That said, it is important that political parties that are asking the judiciary to open itself up to scrutiny do the same. While it is true that individuals fighting elections declare their assets and liabilities, the same cannot be said for the political parties to which they belong. Today, political parties do not disclose the sources of their funding, their argument being that they are filing their income-tax returns anyway; and the law says that the income tax authorities cannot disclose the details in the returns. The basic idea behind individuals filing details of their assets and liabilities was to see if these were out of line with their known sources of income "" which is why, for instance, when a Vijay Mallya has assets several times bigger than those of your average MP, no one rushes to the conclusion that this wealth is ill-gotten. The same logic applies to political parties, indeed more so. If the Congress party has got a huge donation from a large industrial house, the public has a right to know since it is likely that this will influence its policies/actions towards that industrial house. So far, the information revealed under RTI has pertained more to transfers and postings of bureaucrats; to a smaller extent, the information has also included details of how various programmes have fared. Getting information about those who make the laws, and those who uphold them, would go a long way in making the country's democracy more accountable.