While the debate on transparency in higher judiciary is raging, information obtained under the Right to Information Act has revealed that when it comes to declaring assets they have acquired while in power, the Tamil Nadu legislature fares no better.

Four decades after the Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution — moved by the then CM M Karunanidhi — stating that every member, including ministers and presiding officers of the House, will declare assets acquired either by them or relatives and the sources of income every year, not a single member has come forward to declare assets since 1997.

According to information collected by V Madhav, a software engineer-turned-RTI activist, the trend of non-disclosure became prevalent among all party members in the present Assembly and the one preceding this, as not one from the 234 members filed details about their assets to the House — this, despite the resolution on transparency being incorporated into the Practice and Procedure of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.

To queries raised by Madhav, T Govindaraju, Joint Secretary and Public Information Officer of the Legislative Assembly secretariat, replied:

n Starting from the year 1996-97, no MLA including ministers and presiding officer have submitted their assets statement to the Assembly;

n The respective chief ministers have not submitted their returns since 1973-74;

n From the year 1977-78, not more than five ministers/presiding officers have submitted the details each year.

After living up to the spirit of the resolution in the initial years, even five-time CM Karunanidhi, the architect behind the resolution on August 27, 1969, failed to scale the high moral ground when he came back to power in 1989, 1996 and 2006. The DMK chief, however, is not alone in not declaring assets. AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran did not declare his assets when he was the CM from 1977 to 1987. J Jayalalithaa did not file the statements even when she was CM between 1991-96, and 2001-06.

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