🔆 SC Judges Declare Assets Publicly (April 1, 2025): ✅ All 31 Supreme Court judges, including the Chief Justice of India, declared their assets—a move rooted in a 1997 ethics code aimed at improving judicial accountability. 📍 Background Trigger – Justice Varma Incident: ✅ The decision follows the discovery of cash at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma, sparking concerns over judicial corruption. 📍 The 1997 Code – ‘Restatement of Values of Judicial Life’: ✅ Adopted in a full court meeting, the code outlines 16 ethical principles for judges. ✅ It aimed to reinforce public trust and institutional accountability. ✅ Key guidelines include avoiding conflicts of interest, political expression, close personal ties with lawyers, and gifts or hospitality from non-family members. 🔆 Voluntary Asset Declarations Since 2009: ✅ Judges decided to declare assets “purely on a voluntary basis.” ✅ These were published online, but updates have been irregular—only 28 of 33 judges have disclosed their assets as of the latest update. 🔆 Confidentiality and RTI Limitations: ✅ A 2019 SC ruling stated asset declarations are not “personal information” exempt from RTI queries, but the practice of confidentiality persists. 📍 Gaps in Misconduct Accountability: ✅ There’s a significant gap between misconduct and impeachable offenses—no SC judge has ever been impeached. ✅ The 1997 code addresses this gap by outlining what constitutes “bad conduct.” 📍 ‘Values of Judicial Life’ as a Disciplinary Framework: ✅ The 1997 resolution laid the foundation for an internal process to investigate judicial misconduct. ✅ Reinvoked in 2014 and 2025 for in-house inquiries, such as the sexual harassment case in 2014 and the current case involving Justice Varma. 📍 Enforcement and Transparency Challenges Remain: ✅ Although the framework for accountability exists, consistent enforcement and transparency—especially in asset disclosure—remain concerns. #ethics