All modern sense of gender equality must come to naught now for a supreme court judge, a woman no less, has listed the marriage of her two unmarried daughters as 'liabilities". Or has it?

She has listed the marriage of her two unmarried daughters as ‘liabilities’ in the declaration of her assets and liabilities for the year 2010, inviting sharp criticism from sections of society especially the woman right activists. When she should be an ideal for women across the nation, she is just dragging us back to the dark ages, many seem to think. But to be fair to all Indian parents, all weddings, not "marriages", are liabilities. Given Mishra's economic class,  whether it is a daughter or a son, she or anyone else in her shoes would have had to spend a whole bunch to get the "progeny" wedded. All Mishra should be held guilty is a politically incorrect articulation of a fact on an official document. The criticsism should be of such oversight by some one of whom better is expected and not of the country's only woman judge at present for being sexist, holding office at the apex court. Or else the media could be just as guilty of what it accuses Mishra of - blind oversight.

Justice Mishra, formerly the chief justice of Jharkhand high court and only sitting SC judge has clubbed her daughters’ marriage with the guarantor for the education loan of her daughter and residential house to be built post retirement as her liabilities.

However, as per her declaration, she does not possess any extraordinary assets which includes a Maruti  800 car of the 1996 model. She has also mentioned in her assets a few gold rings and a pair of bangles, a fixed deposit worth Rs 5 lakh, a public provident fund of Rs 3 lakh, and her VIth pay commission arrears.

While she owns an office space in Rani Bagh, Delhi, and an unregistered residential plot in Faridabad, she is also a claimant in undivided joint family property in Dhanbad, Jharkhand.