CJI-designate Sanjiv Khanna key in verdicts on poll bonds, Article 370

Senior-most Supreme Court judge Sanjiv Khanna, who is set to take oath as the 51st Chief Justice of India, has been part of several landmark judgements including those related to electoral bonds, and abrogation of Article 370.

His name was recommended by CJI Chandrachud as his successor to the Centre on October 17.

He will serve as the chief of the expansive Indian judicial system for just little over six months. He would retire on May 13, 2025.

Justice Khanna was elevated as an additional judge of the Delhi high court in 2005 and was made a permanent judge in 2006. He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on January 18, 2019.

Born on May 14, 1960, he studied law at the Campus Law Centre of Delhi University.

Some of the notable judgments of Justice Khanna in the Supreme Court include upholding the use of electronic voting machines in elections, saying the devices were secure and eliminated booth capturing and bogus voting.

He was also part of the five-judge bench that declared the electoral bond scheme, meant for funding of political parties, as unconstitutional.

Justice Khanna was a part of the five-judge bench, which upheld the Centre's 2019 decision abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution which granted a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Justice Khanna, who is the senior-most judge after the outgoing CJI, and the executive chairman of the National Legal Service Authority (NALSA), had granted interim bail to the then Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, an accused in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam cases, for campaigning in Lok Sabha elections.

He is the nephew of former apex court judge H R Khanna, who was part of the landmark verdict propounding the basic structure doctrine in Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.

Justice Khanna will assume charges on November 11, a day after the retirement of CJI Chandrachud who served for two years at the helm of the Indian judiciary.

The retirement age of Supreme Court judges is 65 years.