Justice Dhananjaya Yashwant Chandrachud was sworn in as the 50th Chief Justice of India on Wednesday.
President Droupadi Murmu administered him the oath of office at a brief ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He took the oath in English and in the name of God.
Justice Chandrachud took over as the CJI from Justice UU Lalit, who demitted office on Tuesday, and will head India’s judiciary until November 10, 2024, a day before he completes 65 years.
Those present at the ceremony included Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Kiren Rijiju. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not present at the function. He was engaged in addressing election rallies in Himachal Pradesh.
CJI Chandrachud is the son of the longest serving CJI Y V Chandrachud, who headed the Judiciary from February 22, 1978, to July 11, 1985.
This is for the first time a CJI son becomes the CJI. He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on May 13, 2016, after serving as Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court.
Immediately after the swearing-in ceremony at the Rastrapati Bhawan, the 50th CJI reached the Supreme Court premises and paid floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi’s statue. Later talking to the media in the Supreme Court, the new CJI said that serving people of the country was his “priority”.
“Serving common people is my priority. Please look forward, I will work for all the citizens of the country. Be it in technology or be it in registry...Or be it in judicial reforms, I will take care of citizens in every aspect,” he said.
The CJI said heading the Indian judiciary was a “great opportunity and responsibility”. In response to a query as to how he will ensure trust of people in judiciary, he said, “I will ensure trust of citizens not only through words but through my work”.
Justice Chandrachud, who calls dissent the “safety valve of democracy”, was part of several Constitution benches and landmark verdicts of the top court, including on matters relating to the Ayodhya land dispute and Right to Privacy. He was also part of the benches that delivered path-breaking judgements on decriminalising same-sex relations after it partially struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, validity of the Aadhaar scheme and Sabarimala issue.
Recently, a bench headed by him expanded the scope of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act and the corresponding rules to include unmarried women for abortion between 20-24 weeks of pregnancy. A bench headed by him had also passed several directions to assuage people’s miseries during the Covid-19 crisis, terming the brutal second wave of the pandemic last year a “national crisis”.
Recently, Justice Chandrachud, as the senior-most judge after then CJI Lalit, was among the two judges of the apex court Collegium who had objected to the method of “circulation” adopted for eliciting views of its members on the appointment of judges to the top court.
In a landmark verdict delivered in February 2020, a bench headed by him had directed that women officers in the Army be granted permanent commission and command postings, rejecting the Centre’s stand of their physiological limitations as being based on “sex stereotypes” and “gender discrimination against women”.
Later, the bench had also paved the way for granting permanent commission to women officers in Indian Navy, saying a level-playing field ensures that women have the opportunity to overcome “histories of discrimination”.
Justice Chandrachud was designated as a senior advocate by the Bombay High Court in June 1998 and became Additional Solicitor General in the same year till his appointment as a judge. After completing BA Honours in Economics from St Stephen’s College, New Delhi, Justice Chandrachud did his LLB from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University, and obtained LLM degree and a Doctorate in Juridical Sciences (SJD) from Harvard Law School, USA. He practised law at the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court and was a visiting professor of comparative Constitutional law at the University of Mumbai.
