State may make asset declaration compulsory for ministers

“As per the existing law, ministers can declare their assets and liabilities on a voluntary basis. We are considering making it compulsory for which we will have to put in a new section in the legislation. The chief minister has referred the matter to the law and judiciary department,” said a senior state government official who did not wish to be named.

[related-post]

Senior cabinet minister Chandrakant Patil said, “Asset declaration is voluntary for the ministers at present. There is also a perception that in case of ministers there is a duplication as we have to disclose our assets when filing the affidavits during elections. So, the information is already in public domain.”

Along with making the declaration compulsory, the state government is also mulling over a long-standing demand from activists of placing the information that the ministers furnish in the public domain, the official added. Until now, while the state government publishes the list of ministers who have declared their assets online, their actual disclosures are not
put up.

Recently, a Right to Information application that a Mumbai-based activist had filed revealed that the state government does not have any information on the assets and liabilities of its ministers and ministers of state.

The state government has 30 ministers – 18 cabinet ministers and 12 ministers of state. This includes ten ministers from the Shiv Sena – five cabinet ministers and five ministers of state.

“This year, none of the ministers have declared their assets and liabilities so far. Until last year, there were quite a few ministers under the previous government who used to submit these details,” the official said.

In 2014, under the erstwhile Congress-NCP government, out of 42 ministers, 24 had declared their assets. This included prominent Congress ministers such as Prithviraj Chavan, former chief minister, Patangrao Kadam, Harshvardhan Patil, VarshaGaikwad and Rajendra Mulak, and NCP ministers such as Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, and Sunil Tatkare, among others.