Email
Print
ShareNew Delhi: On Monday, 22 Supreme Court judges made good on their promise of disclosing their assets to the public. They "voluntarily" listed their assets in terms of properties, cash, share and mutual fund investments, and jewellery owned by them and their spouses, but left valuations vague.
The broad conclusions are simple: none of the judges has a net worth below Rs1 crore; many are multi-crorepatis; others own several landed properties, including acres of agricultural land; and some of their wives tend to be loaded with jewellery.
Among the 21 sitting judges who disclosed their assets, the richest appear to be RV Raveendran, Dalveer Bhandari, HL Dattu and DK Jain. The poorest seem to be Tarun Chatterjee, Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph.
The chief justice of India, KG Balakrishnan, comes somewhere in between, though he seems to be a pure property man. Between him and his wife Nirmala, they own six properties, including one in Faridabad near Delhi. The CJI also owns houses in Kanayanur, Ernakulam, Kaduthruty, and Kottayam.
While the CJI's disclosures show that he paid around Rs18 lakh for four of these properties, realtors in Kerala say that his six properties could together command a market value of Rs1.5-2 crore. The CJI did not disclose any of his bank accounts, but owns 20 sovereigns of gold and a Santro car. One sovereign is around 8gm.
Among the high net worth judges, Raveendran and his wife Vasanthi hold eight properties between them for which they paid at least Rs37 lakh. They also hold shares in 110 companies -- including the Reliance companies of Mukesh and Anil Ambani -- valued at over Rs39 lakh. As a sitting judge and government employee, he would also hold lakhs in the government provident fund (GPF), but this has not been disclosed.
Dalveer Bhandari and his wife own five properties, including ancestral and agricultural land. His fixed deposits, public provident fund (PPF) and GPF accounts add up to over Rs1.5 crore, and his gold and silver holdings add up to around Rs25 lakh.
HL Dattu and his wife Gayatri own nine properties, some of them partially.He has share investments in 24 companies, over Rs40 lakh in fixed deposits and over Rs11 lakh in gold. A lot of the property is owned by his wife, anex-employee of Ing Vysya Bank.
