M A I N   N E W S

Pb & Hry HC judges to float asset details on website
Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 17
Finally, the assets and liabilities of the Punjab and Haryana High Court judges will be available on the official website.

Nearly six months after the Chief Justice and the judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court unanimously resolved to declare their assets, they today fixed March 31 as the deadline.

With this, it is clear that the assets and liabilities of the judges, along with those of their spouses and children, will be floated on the high court’s official website by March 31, on the apex court pattern.

The development is significant as the Punjab and Haryana High Court is the fourth High Court in the country, where the judges have decided to voluntarily put their assets in public domain. The first three to follow the footsteps of the apex court judges are Delhi, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh High Court.

Available information suggests the resolution was initially passed on August 31 last by the full court attended by almost all judges, hours before the General House of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association was to hold a meeting for discussing the issue.

Days after the issue was again taken up by the Bar Association, the judges and Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal met this afternoon and resolved that the details of the assets would be submitted in accordance with a set performa, prepared by a committee of senior-most high court judges, after taking into consideration the pattern adopted by the Supreme Court and the other high courts. It is believed that from now on assets would be declared by the advocates and the district and sessions judges at the time of their elevation to the High Court. The sitting judges too would update the details of their assets, handed over in a sealed cover to Justice Vijender Kumar Jain in May 2008, when he was the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Until now, the judges have been furnishing the details of the assets in a sealed cover to the Chief Justice, but the passing of the resolution indicates the assets will now be declared publicly.