Justice Chandrachud next CJI; oath on Nov 9

NEW DELHI: Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, the senior most judge of the Supreme Court, was on Monday appointed the 50th Chief Justice of India and he will take oath on November 9. Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju announced the appointment of Justice Chandrachud, who will serve as the CJI for two years. Justice Chandrachud, who is the son of longest-serving CJI YV Chandrachud, succeeds Justice UU Lalit. Justice Chandrachud, who sees dissent as the “safety valve of democracy”, was part of several Constitution benches and some of the landmark verdicts of the top court.

Justice Chandrachud part of major verdicts including Ayodhya dispute

He is no stranger to the hallowed corridors of the Supreme Court over which his illustrious father presided for about seven years and four months, the longest in the institution’s history.

Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, however, had no qualms about overturning the judgements of father YV Chandrachud on hot- button issues like adultery and the right to privacy.

The senior-most Supreme Court judge will now take over as the 50th Chief Justice of India on November 9, stepping into the shoes of his redoubtable father YV Chandrachud, who was the CJI between 1978 and 1985, the first instance of a father-son duo occupying the most sanctified seat in the over seven-decade history of the highest court of India.

The formidable DY Chandrachud, has been part of several constitution benches and penned landmark verdicts at the top court, including those in the vexed Ayodhya land title dispute. Justice Chandrachud will take the charge from incumbent CJI Uday Umesh Lalit, who recommended him as his successor to the Centre on October 11. He will serve as the chief of the expansive Indian judicial system for two years till November 10, 2024.

Justice Chandrachud was elevated to the top court on May 13, 2016. He was on the benches that delivered path-breaking judgements on decriminalising same-sex relations when they partially struck down Section 377 of the IPC on the so-called unnatural sex (of carnal intercourse against the order of the nature), validity of the Aadhaar scheme and the Sabarimala temple issue, where women of menstruating age were barred from entering the Kerala temple.

Recently, a bench he headed expanded the scope of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy(MTP) Act and the corresponding rules to include unmarried women, even transgender, for abortion between 20-24 weeks of pregnancy. A Justice Chandrachud-led bench had also passed several directions to mitigate the miseries faced by people during the COVID-19 crisis, terming the brutal second wave of the pandemic last year a “national crisis”.

Born on November 11, 1959, Justice Chandrachud is known for his love of the game of cricket which, according to some accounts, he played along with his father’s staff in the backyard of the bungalow Chandrachud Sr. was allotted in Lutyen’s Delhi. A known workaholic, Chandrachud presided over a bench on September 30, 2022 that sat till 9:10 pm, around five hours beyond the regular working time of the apex court, to hear 75 cases to clear the board before the onset of the Dussehra vacations.