In an unexpected turn of events, 18 judges of the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday publicly declared their assets on the court’s official website.

Earlier, Justice D.V. Shylendra Kumar who after being declined permission from posting his asset details on the court website, proceeded to do so on his blog. Justice Shylendra Kumar’s details are also up on the court website. The Judges have not only posted their personal financial details but also those of their immediate family.

Responding to a report published in a national daily, that only 19 judges of the Karnataka High Court, the Registrar General of the High Court, A.P. Murari, has issued a press note that of the 36 judges sitting in the High Court, 8 judges are yet to declare their assets, and 6 other judges have elected not to publicly disclose their assets on account of a lack of legislation.

The press note reads as follows: “Out of 33 Hon’ble Judges, including the Chief Justice, only 19 Hon’ble Judges have volunteered to web-host their assets and liabilities. Among the rest, six Hon’ble Judges have specifically stated that their statement of assets and liabilities shall not/need not be web-hosted; some Hon’ble Judges have stated that their statement of assets and liabilities be kept in the sealed cover and one of the Hon’ble Judge has stated that he is reluctantly declaring the assets and liabilities as there is no legislation, however, have left it to the discretion of the Hon’ble Chief Justice to place the same in public domain. The Hon’ble Chief Justice, therefore, has no option except to wait for arriving at a consensus for web hosting the assets and liabilities of all Hon’ble Judges, except those who volunteered to web-host it. Hence, it is not correct to say that only 19 Hon’ble Judges of the Karnataka High Court alone have declared their assets and liabilities.”   

Justices Manjula Chellur, K. Shreedhar Rao, N. Kumar, K. Bhaktavatsala, Mohan Shantana Goudar, H. Billappa, S. Abdul Nazeer, B.S. Patil, V. Jagannathan, C.R. Kumara Swamy, Ashok B. Hinchigere, A.S. Bopanna, N. Ananada, A.N. Venugopala Gowda, Arali Nagaraj, A.S. Pachapure, K.N. Keshav Narayana and Arvind Kumar were the justices who declared their assets.

Recently, Bar & Bench carried a report on how six months after the judges of the Supreme Court published their assets, judges of only 4 of the 21 High Courts, numbering 173 of the total strength of 630 judges made a clean breast of their finances.

Their asset details can be found at here.