Justice Khanna to take oath as CJI on Monday, Justice Chandrachud retires

Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who has been part of several landmark Supreme Court judgements such as scrapping the electoral bonds scheme and upholding abrogation of Article 370, will be sworn in as the 51st Chief Justice of India on Monday.

President Droupadi Murmu will administer the oath of office at Rashtrapati Bhavan in a ceremony scheduled at 10 am.

Justice Khanna will succeed Justice D Y Chandrachud, who retired on Sunday, and his term will last until May 13, 2025.

The Centre officially notified Justice Khanna's appointment on October 24 following Chief Justice Chandrachud's recommendation on October 16.

Friday was the last working day of Justice Chandrachud as the CJI and he was given a rousing farewell by judges, lawyers and staff of the apex court and the high courts.

Justice Chandrachud's two-year tenure as the 50th CJI was marked by transformative rulings and substantial reforms, carving out a unique legacy in the Indian judicial history.

Beside delivering several landmark judgments like the Ayodhya land dispute, abrogation of Article 370 and the decriminalisation of consensual gay sex that shaped society and politics, he was part of 38 constitution benches during his eight years tenure as a judge in the Supreme Court.

During his tenure at the apex court, he rendered more than 500 judgments, some of them having wide ramification to the society and legal field.

India's 50th Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, known also for his many pithy statements, leaves an imprint all his own on the annals of legal history.

Not only on the judicial side but even in the administrative side, CJI Chandrachud left his imprint as he led various reforms in the judiciary.

He ordered an accessibility audit of the Supreme Court to make the courts accessible to the common man and disabled friendly.

The Chandrachud legacy has a physical manifestation too -- a reimagined 'Lady Justice'. The earlier 'Goddess of Justice' in Grecian robes with blindfold and sword has been replaced by a six-ft tall sculpture with scales in one hand and the Constitution in another.

She is in a sari, with a crown and sans blindfold.

While that created a stir, so did the decision on his penultimate day at work with the Supreme Court rechristening its summer vacation 'partial court working days', an issue that has led to criticism that the apex court judges enjoyed long breaks.

DYC followed in the footsteps of his father Y V Chandrachud, who served as the CJI with the longest tenure between 1978 and 1985, the only instance of a father and son occupying the highest seat in the highest court of India.

The son, who studied in Delhi's St Stephen's College and Campus Law Centre and then went on to get an LLM degree and a doctorate from the Harvard Law School, became the chief justice on November 9, 2022.

The list of judgements penned by him is long and covers almost all aspects of law. They blend scholarship and jurisprudence and are likely to inform both future decisions and how the law is studied.

The verdicts have included establishing the judiciary's commitment to protecting individual rights and advancing justice, expanding the scope of fundamental rights to include privacy and invalidating the electoral bond scheme.

He was part of a landmark judgment by a five-judge constitution bench that recognised the 'living will' made by terminally-ill patients for passive euthanasia.

The formidable Justice Chandrachud was also part of several Constitution benches and wrote landmark verdicts, including the contentious Ayodhya land title dispute.

He was author of the unanimous 2019 verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute which settled the fractious issue going back more than a century and paved the way for construction of the temple. Ranjan Gogoi was the chief justice at the time and heading the five-judge bench.

In his last days in office, the CJI stirred another controversy when he said in a public function that he prayed to the 'deity' for a solution to the polarising dispute. The comment was reproduced widely and elicited sharp reactions from various quarters, including politicians and activists.

Justice Chandrachud, who also attracted attention when Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a widely publicised Ganesh Puja at his home, was the author of the lead judgment that unanimously upheld the 2019 revocation of Article 370 that gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Besides, he was on the bench that delivered path-breaking judgements on decriminalising same-sex relations and partially struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code on so-called unnatural sex (of carnal intercourse against the order of the nature).

However, the long-pending issue of granting legal sanction to same sex marriage went against the LGBTQIA++ community and a five-judge bench headed by Justice Chandrachud refused to accord legal recognition to it.

He was also part of a nine-judge bench and key author of the unanimous verdict that declared the right to privacy a fundamental right under Article 21 (life and personal liberty).

The CJI, one of the most prolific judges in independent India, led the charge for significant administrative reforms, including the continued digitisation of court records and processes as a part of the ongoing e-Courts project.

The list is long.

He expanded the scope of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and the corresponding rules to include unmarried women, even transgender, for abortion between 20-24 weeks of pregnancy.

Justice Chandrachud, who was elevated to the top court on May 13, 2016, was born on November 11, 1959.

He was a judge of the Bombay high court from March 29, 2000 until his appointment as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court from October 31, 2013.

Before that, he was designated senior advocate by the Bombay high court in June 1998 and became additional solicitor general the same year till his appointment as a judge.

Besides his legal acumen, Justice Chandrachud is known for his love of cricket, which, according to some accounts, he played in the backyard of the bungalow Chandrachud Sr was allotted in Lutyens Delhi.

Justice Sanjiv Khanna to take over

Justice Khanna, who served as a Supreme Court judge since January 2019, has been part of several landmark judgements such as upholding the sanctity of EVMs, scrapping the electoral bonds scheme, upholding the abrogation of Article 370 and the grant of interim bail to former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.

Hailing from an illustrious Delhi-based family, Justice Khanna is the son of former Delhi high court judge Justice Dev Raj Khanna and the nephew of prominent former apex court judge H R Khanna.

Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on January 18, 2019, was a third-generation lawyer before being appointed as judge of the high court. He is driven by the zeal to reduce pendency and speed up justice delivery.

Justice H R Khanna, the uncle of Justice Khanna, hit the headlines by resigning in 1976 after he wrote a dissenting verdict in the infamous ADM Jabalpur case during the Emergency.

The majority verdict of a Constitution bench, upholding the abrogation of fundamental rights during the Emergency, was considered a "black spot" on the judiciary.

Justice H R Khanna declared the move unconstitutional and against the rule of law and paid a price as the then central government superseded him and made Justice M H Beg the next CJI.

Justice H R Khanna was part of the landmark verdict propounding the basic structure doctrine in the Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.

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

A bench headed by Justice Khanna, on April 26, termed the suspicion of manipulation of the EVMs 'unfounded' and rejected the demand for reverting to the old paper ballot system.

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

It was the Justice Khanna-led bench, which for the first time, granted interim bail to Kejriwal, the then chief minister, till June 1 to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections in the excise policy scam cases.

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

Justice Khanna was the executive chairman of the National Legal Service Authority (NALSA).

He enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Delhi in 1983 and initially practised in the District Courts at the TisHazari complex here and later, in the Delhi high court.

He had a long tenure as the senior standing counsel for the Income Tax Department. In 2004, he was appointed as the standing counsel (Civil) for the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

Justice Khanna had also argued in a number of criminal cases at the Delhi high court as an additional public prosecutor and as an amicus curiae.