DECLARATION OF ASSETS

A lot of noise is created about the declaration of assets by the Judges. What is the use of just declaring the assets. In my opinion and with high regard to the Judges, they may not have much assets as our Judicial system is not so much corrupt. Well, the people working in the Judicial Department, in most cases, are corrupt giving a bad name to the Judges. Hence they should declare their assets every year. There we may get the real cream. People have grease the palms of the concerned employees in the department, even to get the copy of the judgment on time. The Judges may not be aware of this corruption or may not have time to look into it.

Our Hon'ble Prime Minister, during his address to the Income Tax Department emphasized the need to hook big fish rather than small ones. The Department is very well aware of those big fishes in the nation. However, either they do not want to catch them for fear of action by their political bosses or they may be getting a part of the cream to quash up the matter thus depriving the nation its legitimate revenue.
The Income Tax dept. is very happy to harass the small fish leaving the Big fish untouched and allow it to grow still bigger.

Now let me go to the other side of the coin. All the candidates while filing their applications to contest election have to declare their assets. Some have declared assets in crores of rupees but do not have a PAN. That means they have not paid a single paisa tax to the Government. Such law breaking people are proud to be our law makers and want to govern the law abiding citizen of India. Is this not a mockery of the system? I feel they, while filing the details, should also submit an Affidavit giving details of the assets, how they acquired it, source of their income, how much tax they have paid to the Government etc. After declaration of assets, an Independent Agency should investigate, verify the declaration made by each candidate and if found incorrect, should be disqualified before the election so that all the litigations can be avoided later on which take more than 5 years. In the mean time the illegally elected person enjoys all the fruits as an elected member and there is no provision to recover it from him if he is disqualified. Just declaring the assets and doing nothing about it is a mockery of the system.

There should be a system that all the Government employees, from Office Boy to the Chief Secretary should declare their assets every year and a thorough investigation should be carried out on what they have declared. In some cases, even office boys in some Government offices (including Municipalities) have assets disproportionate to their income(probably more than the assets of our Prime Minister). Then just imagine how much more would be there with the other higher ups.

If the disproportionate assets of Government employees and other big fishes are investigated and confiscated the ill gotten money, the Government will have plenty of money to carry out their dream projects all over India in eliminating poverty and illiteracy.