New Delhi: Annual declarations of immovable assets are intended to promote transparency and accountability among India’s senior bureaucrats. However, a review of the latest filings by The Indian Express has highlighted significant gaps in the information disclosed by top-ranking government officials.
Of the 131 Secretary-level officials, Chief Secretaries and other senior officers covered in the review, the newspaper accessed the latest declarations of 102 officials, which were made available on official portals by March 31, 2026.
These declarations listed 244 self-acquired properties. However, 115 of these properties did not mention their area or dimensions, while another 115 did not disclose their current value. Ten of the 102 officials declared that they owned no self-acquired immovable property.
The findings raise questions about the completeness of mandatory asset disclosures and the mechanisms available to verify the information submitted by senior public servants.
244 Self-Acquired Properties Declared by 102 Officials
The 244 properties identified in the declarations included 219 residential properties, three commercial properties and 22 agricultural land parcels.
The review also found that 44 of the 102 officials and/or their spouses owned three or more self-acquired properties.
Among them, seven officials declared five properties each, 13 declared four properties each, and 24 reported ownership of three properties each.
The highest number of self-acquired properties was declared by a Secretary-rank IAS officer, who reported owning eight properties, including seven in Kerala and one in Meghalaya.
Another Secretary-rank IAS officer declared six properties across Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. These included three properties in Mumbai and a Delhi Development Authority (DDA) flat in New Delhi.
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115 Properties Have No Details of Area or Dimensions
One of the major findings concerns the absence of basic property details in the declarations.
Of the 244 self-acquired properties, 115 did not contain information about their area or dimensions. This means that nearly half of the properties reviewed lacked details that would help establish their physical size.
The declared residential properties with available measurements ranged from 617 square feet to 23,925 square feet. Agricultural land holdings ranged from small plots to as much as 39 acres.
The review also found that many properties were located in Delhi-NCR and state capitals. Several were allotted through cooperative housing societies, including Kendriya Vihar projects of the Central Government Employees Welfare Housing Organisation.
Current Value Missing for 115 Properties
The disclosure of property valuations was another major gap.
Although the declarations listed 244 properties, the present-value column contained information for only 129. For the remaining 115 properties, officials used descriptions such as “not known”, “value not determined”, “as per circle rate”, “not valuated”, “not assessed”, “not ascertained” or “no assessment made”.
The absence of current valuations makes it difficult to establish the present worth of the properties from the publicly available declarations.
Ten Officials Declare No Self-Acquired Property
Among the 102 officials whose declarations were reviewed, ten reported having no self-acquired immovable property.
Interestingly, one IAS officer belonging to the Jammu and Kashmir cadre has declared “nil” self-acquired property in every annual filing since 2011.
The other nine officials had declared immovable assets in some of their earlier filings but reported no self-acquired property in their latest declarations.
The review covered only self-acquired immovable properties and did not include ancestral assets.
Who Are the Officials Covered in the Review?
The 131 officials in the category included 95 Secretaries heading departments under the Central Government, including officials attached to the President’s Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office, NITI Aayog and the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser. The category also covered Chief Secretaries of 28 states and eight Union Territories.
The group included nine scientists, five officers from the Indian Foreign Service and three from the Indian Police Service. One official heading two departments belonged to the Indian Legal Service, while another was from the Indian Postal Service. The remaining officials were IAS officers, most belonging to the 1989–1998 batches.
Secretaries head their respective departments at the Centre and rank immediately below the Cabinet Secretary. Chief Secretaries, meanwhile, lead the state and Union Territory bureaucracies.
The newspaper confirmed that the officials whose declarations were examined were holding their respective positions as of October 1, 2026.
Why Do Bureaucrats Have to Declare Their Assets?
Under the conduct rules applicable to their respective services, bureaucrats are required to submit annual declarations of their immovable assets, covering themselves, their spouses and dependents.
These returns must be updated by January 31 every year and placed in the public domain by March 31.
The public disclosure system began in 2011 following Right to Information (RTI) petitions, demands for a Lokpal and the anti-corruption movement. Its objective was to make the property holdings of public servants accessible to citizens and strengthen accountability.
Section 44 of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act originally required public servants to declare their movable and immovable assets, similar to the disclosure requirements applicable to electoral candidates, MPs and ministers.
However, the provision was amended in December 2016. It stated that rules prescribing the form, manner and timelines for filing asset and liability declarations by public servants would be notified “in due course”. According to the report, those rules are still awaited.
Questions Over Verification and Accountability
The findings have also raised questions about whether the information submitted by senior officials is independently verified and whether any action is taken when mandatory details are missing.
The Indian Express sent questions to the Cabinet Secretariat and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) regarding the existence of a verification mechanism, action taken against officials who omitted required details in their 2025 filings, and the status of the rules promised under Section 44 of the Lokpal Act.
Neither department responded to the newspaper’s emailed questions.
While officials are required to report additions to their movable assets above a prescribed value to the government, those details are not made public. In contrast, ministers’ asset details are available on the Prime Minister’s Office website, electoral candidates’ asset declarations are publicly accessible, and the assets and liabilities of Supreme Court judges were also made public last year.
The findings therefore bring the effectiveness of the existing disclosure framework into focus. Although senior bureaucrats are required to declare their immovable assets every year, missing property dimensions and valuations raise questions about whether the system is delivering the transparency and accountability it was intended to ensure.
