Twenty-one Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, have disclosed their financial assets and liabilities on the top court’s website, sending a strong message to critics who blamed the judiciary for lack of transparency.
The near-midnight publication of the wealth and properties, both earned and inherited, of the judges and their family members on Monday (May 6, 2025) incidentally came within hours of the court issuing a statement that a three-member inquiry committee had submitted its report on the discovery of half-burnt currency notes in the official residence of High Court judge, Justice Yashwant Varma. The court had responded to allegations of opacity by moving towards transparency with regard to judicial assets and the Justice Varma controversy.
The list of assets of the 21 out of a total 33 serving judges of the court swing between the identifiably commonplace and affluence. Home and car loans, a few pieces of jewellery, a house still under construction as retirement draws near to ancestral properties, residential apartments in metros, 10-figure investments matched by nine-figure tax statements and zero financial liabilities.
Chief Justice Khanna has listed a three-bedroom Delhi Development Authority (DDA) flat and four-bedroom one with parking lots at the Commonwealth Games Village in the national capital. He has a share in an ancestral property acquired and developed by his grandfather several years before the Partition. The top judge has investments worth over ₹55 lakh and no loans, a Life Insurance of India policy besides a 2015-model hatchback car.
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Chief Justice of India-designate B.R. Gavai has a house inherited from his father in his native Amravati in Maharashtra besides apartments in Mumbai and New Delhi and agricultural lands.
Justice Surya Kant makes a point to say he has “three valuable watches” besides real estate in Gurugram, Chandigarh and Hisar, but no vehicles. Justice Abhay S. Oka has a car loan worth a little over ₹5 lakh.
Justice Vikram Nath, the fifth judge of the Collegium, has investments worth over a crore, but owns no jewellery or vehicles. He has no loans. Likewise, Justice Bela M. Trivedi has no loans but is constructing a house in Ahmedabad. She has jewellery worth ₹50 lakh and a hatchback car. The assets of Justice B.V. Nagarathna, the second woman judge on the top court Bench, has not yet been uploaded on the site.
The assets of Justices P.S. Narasimha and K.V. Viswanathan, both directly elevated to the top court Bench from the Bar, have been published. Their assets reflected their successful legal careers in the Supreme Court Bar. Both judges are in line to be Chief Justices of India as per the seniority norm.
Justice Narasimha’s assets include nine-figure investments and jewellery worth in six figures. He has listed his income tax statements from 2008-2009 to 2023-2024, which also count to nine figures.
Justice Viswanathan has investments in 10 figures and his total income tax paid from 2010-2025 are in nine figures. He has no loans and has jewellery weighing a few 100 grams.
Justice J.B. Pardiwala, also in line to be Chief Justice of India as per the seniority norm, has a “few gold jewellery” and a home loan.
Besides Justice Nagarathna, the assets of Justices J.K. Maheshwari, Dipankar Datta, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Manoj Misra, Aravind Kumar, P.K. Mishra, S.C. Sharma, P.B. Varale, N. Kotiswar Singh, R. Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi have not been uploaded. The Supreme Court clarified that “statements of assets of judges already received are being uploaded. Statement of assets of other judges will be uploaded as and when the current statement of assets is received”.
The publication of assets followed a unanimous resolution of the Full Court on April 1. Unlike politicians and bureaucrats, judges do not have to mandatorily put their assets in the public domain.
A Full Court Resolution of May 7, 1997 headed by the then Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma had decided that judges must declare their assets to the Chief Justice of India “in the form of real estate or investments held by them or their spouses or dependents within a reasonable time of assuming office”. In 2009, over a decade later, a Full Bench of the Court resolved to place the assets of judges on the Supreme Court website, but purely on a voluntary basis.
The Delhi High Court, the same year, had held that asset declaration by Supreme Court judges, pursuant to the 1997 Resolution, was “information” under Section 2(f) of the Right to Information Act, 2005.
In 2019, a Constitution Bench had held that the disclosure of assets of judges would “not impinge upon the personal information and right to privacy of the judges” if it served public interest. Justice Khanna, as he was then, had authored the main judgment for the Bench.
Published – May 06, 2025 12:52 am IST
