NEW DELHI: Almost a decade after the Supreme Court passed a resolution deciding to make judges’ assets public, nearly half of the 25-odd judges of the top court are yet to make their assets public, a sign which bodes ill for its latest administrative resolution to place collegium decisions on appointments and the reasons for them in public domain. The reason for not making assets public: the disclosure is voluntary and not mandatory. Only 13 of the 25 judges have so far made their assets public. They include the top few.Among those who have disclosed their assets are Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur, AK Sikri, SA Bobde, RK Agrawal, NV Ramana, Arun Misra, AK Goel, R Banumathi and AM Khanwilkar. Most of the judges who have been recently elevated have not declared their assets.The direct elevations from the bar — RF Nariman, Uday Umesh Lalit and L Nageswar Rao — have also shied away from disclosing their assets. All of them were hugely successful lawyers before they were elevated to the bench by then CJI RM Lodha . The top court, both to avert a law mooted by the government to get judges to declare their assets and public opprobrium after the Delhi HC went against it judicially to call “sunlight the biggest disinfectant”, decided in 2009 under then CJI KG Balakrishnan to make judges’ assets public.The system has not improved much with the passage of time. The assets are declared in a non-standardised format, as a result of which they are not often not comparable. No information is given to show the judges’ assets before assuming office and assets after. There has been no attempt to move over the years towards institutionalising a mandatory system of making such assets public.All these bode ill for the top court collegium’s latest decision — by the court’s top five — to make its appointments process public. The latest top court resolution of October 3 said the decisions on appointment and transfer of judges and the reasons behind it would be made public. Former top court judge GS Singhvi was optimistic about the move. “This is undoubtedly a very good move.India is a huge country. Changes take time. It will eventually work,” he said. Former top court judge AK Patnaik also said it would bring in some amount of transparency, a long-pending demand of the public. “There was always a suspicion of arbitrariness about who was selected and who was not. This will definitely improve things. There will be some benefits,” he said. It will also make it difficult for the government to reject names suggested by the collegium, Justice Patnaik suggested. “This is a check on the government too,” he said.The government and the court have in recent years not seen eye to eye on appointments and transfers in several cases involving high court judges, as in the case of justices MR Shah and KM Joseph. Justice Patnaik, however, suggested that this change should be institutionalised for better results, both regarding assets and appointments. All judges must make their assets public, he said. Senior advocate Arvind Datar, however, was sceptical of the move to place in public the details why a particular candidate was rejected.It was fine to place the reasons why a person was picked, but not why he was rejected, he said. “That will damage reputations and put a question mark against the person,” he said. “He will then have to answer why he was found unsuitable and unfit for the position.” Datar suggested the full court sit and draw up a methodology on what to make public, what to hold back and how to make it public. “Sometimes the best possible candidate is rejected on the basis of one-line subjective opinions,” he said. “In some cases the top court collegium rejects names which gave been recommended by the high court collegium after due deliberations. Sometimes, he is the best candidate of the lot.”In that case, the top court must go back to the HC chief justice and tell him why it was rejected, Datar said. Or seek explanations instead of summarily rejecting the names. Justice Patnaik suggested a way out — that the court not stop at just making public the decisions and the reasons behind it. He backed the suggestion by former Supreme Court Bar Association president Dushyant Dave that the minutes of the meeting also be made public.BUT WILL THAT BE ENOUGH?Some say that the resolution is after all a mere administrative decision and can be recalled at the whims and fancies of the collegium. There are already in-house rumblings on this score, people aware of the matter said on condition of anonymity. Others cited the recent collegium decisions placed on the website to argue that the reasons given for selection or rejection were both sketchy and inadequate. Justice Patnaik suggested at just making public the decisions and the reasons behind it. He backed the suggestion by former Supreme Court Bar Association president Dushyant Dave that the minutes of the meeting also be made public.BUT WILL THAT BE ENOUGH?Some say that the resolution is after all a mere administrative decision and can be recalled at the whims and fancies of the collegium. There are already in-house rumblings on this score, people aware of the matter said on condition of anonymity. Others cited the recent collegium decisions placed on the website to argue that the reasons given for selection or rejection were both sketchy and inadequate. Justice Patnaik suggested the way ahead — the court should place the inputs which guided its decision-making in public domain too. How many judgements did the judge write, etc.If he was a lawyer what cases did he argue, he said. The annual confidential reports can also be made public, he suggested. “We need not have a debate like in the Senate before making the appointments. We can ensure that a fair procedure is followed for appointment,” he said. Once that is done, all these problems will be addressed automatically, he said.The procedure preceding the appointment must also be fair and transparent, senior advocate Arvind Datar agreed. There must be clear-cut criteria and minimum eligibility levels and also a vetting process, lawyers suggested in a throwback to the government’s National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, which was struck down by the court. NJAC had proposed a secretariat and also open advertisements to fill up these posts.The court had while striking it down held out the assurance that it would bring in changes to make the process more transparent and accountable. Eventually, it had quailed at the thought of undertaking the mammoth exercise and instead decided to leave matters of procedure to the government. That exercise also ended up in a logjam, with the government insisting on having the final say over the appointments through the revised memorandum of procedure.Though the court has agreed to the government exercising the national security clause to veto appointments, it has demanded written reasons from the government for doing so. The government is not ready for this.