(This story originally appeared in on Oct 03, 2018)

NEW DELHI : When attorney general K K Venugopal on Monday said judges’ salaries should be tripled, he probably had in mind the asset declarations by Supreme Court judges, particularly Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and CJI-designate Ranjan Gogoi , who will take oath as CJI on Wednesday.CJI Misra retires after 21 years as a permanent judge, 14 of which were spent in high courts. Justice Gogoi became a permanent judge of Gauhati high court on February 28, 2001, and took oath as an SC judge on April 23, 2012.Despite their long stints as HC and SC judges, their personal wealth remained paltry, and they would be considered paupers compared to successful senior advocates.Their lifelong savings in bank balance and other assets, put together, would fall short of the daily earning of many senior advocates, who command astronomical fees.Justice Gogoi does not own a single piece of gold jewellery while the only jewellery his wife owns is what she got from her parents, relatives and friends at the time of her marriage. CJI Misra has two gold rings, which he wears, and a gold chain. His wife has a little more jewellery than Justice Gogoi’s spouse.Both the CJI and the CJI-designate do not have any personal vehicle, may be because they were provided with official cars for the last nearly two decades. But unlike some judges of the SC and HCs, Justices Misra and Gogoi don’t dabble in the stock market.Justice Gogoi has no outstanding loan, mortgage, overdraft, unpaid bill or any other liability. Justice Misra had taken Rs 22.5 lakh loan from a bank to purchase a flat in the advocates’ cooperative society in Mayur Vihar, Delhi, which he is repaying. The CJI has another house in Cuttack , which was constructed more than a decade before he become an HC judge. Both of them had declared these assets in 2012.Bank balance, including LIC policy, for Justice Gogoi and his spouse totals a meagre Rs 30 lakh. He declared in July that a plot of land at Beltola in Guwahati purchased by him in 1999, before becoming a judge in Gauhati HC, was sold for Rs 65 lakh in June (he declared the name of the purchaser too). He also said his mother had transferred in his and his spouse’s name a plot of land in Japorigog village near Guwahati in June 2015.Compared to their assets, a successful senior advocate in the SC earns more than Rs 50 lakh a day. AG Venugopal, while speaking at CJI Misra’s farewell function on Monday, probably had the Rs 1 lakh per month salary of an SC judge in mind.Of course, the judges get good perks, allowances and help at the residence. But in money terms, judges are far disadvantaged compared to senior advocates.