It is not too often that you have a judge saying ‘No, my Lord’, but that’s precisely what the 58-year-old Justice D V Shylendra Kumar of the Karnataka High Court did in response to the Chief Justice of India’s reluctance to get brother judges to declare their assets. He was the first judge in the country to respond to a letter of Prashant Bhushan, convener of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform, suggesting that judges should declare their assets — according to information put out on his blog, Justice Kumar owns assets worth Rs 50.38 lakh. The note said that the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court had prevented the information from being displayed on the high court’s website. He followed this up with an article in a newspaper which asked “Who are the judges afraid of?; what are the judges afraid of?”
Within a few days, the Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan, announced that judges were free to declare their assets. This came after Justice Kumar said it was incorrect to believe that all judges did not want to make their assets public and that the Chief Justice of India could not be speaking on behalf of all judges. After a meeting of the full court which went on for over two hours, the judges of the Supreme Court announced they would declare their assets and these would be posted on the Supreme Court’s website.
Being unconventional is not something he’s done for the first time. In September 2008, he passed a judgment which allowed women to be employed in places that served alcohol. The ruling quashed provisions of the Karnataka Excise Act 1965 which prohibited women from working at places — including pubs, dance bars and live bands — where liquor was served. While giving his ruling, Justice Kumar referred to a similar judgment by the Supreme Court in 2007 which permitted women to be employed as bartenders provided their security was ensured.
Another landmark judgment involved Justice Kumar directing the state government to follow proper procedures while granting leases for mining in forest areas and quashed a notification granting lease on the ground that procedure had not been followed.
Justice Kumar practiced in the Madras and Karnataka high courts and was appointed an Additional Judge of the Karnataka High Court on December 11, 2000 — he was made a permanent judge on April 18, 2002. Known to be blunt among the lawyer fraternity, he is now being seen by many lawyers in a new light: As a ‘torchbearer’, being the first judge to make his assets public. He practiced law for around 24 years before moving on to the bench.
Lawyers in the Karnataka high court remember Justice Kumar as someone who preferred to keep out of the media glare — quite the contrary to what the Chief Justice of India said when Justice Kumar first made the details of his assets public.
