Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi
He joined the Bar in 1978, practised in the Gauhati high court and appointed permanent judge of the Gauhati high court on February 28, 2001. On September 9, 2010, Gogoi was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana high court, where he became chief justice on February 12, 2011. Gogoi was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on April 23, 2012. He assumed charge as Chief Justice of India on October 3, 2018 and will retire on November 17 this year. Hailing from Assam, he is the first person from the North-east to be appointed to the topmost position of the apex court and heard several landmark cases during his career including the one pertaining to the National Citizen Register. Before retirement, he will deliver verdicts in three more important cases including the Rafale fighter jet deal review plea, Sabarimala review petition and the question whether the office of the CJI falls under the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act or not.
Justice SA Bobde
He is the next Chief Justice of India after incumbent Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi retires. Bobde will take charge on November 18 and retire on April 23, 2021. He enrolled in the Bar Council of Maharashtra in 1978 and practised law at the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court. He was elevated to the bench of the Bombay high court on March 29, 2000 as additional judge. On October 16, 2012 he was sworn in as chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh high court. Justice Bobde was elevated as a judge of Supreme Court April 12, 2013. The judge has heard several key cases and was part of a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court which in August 2017 declared the right to privacy as a fundamental right of an individual.
Justice DY Chandrachud
The son of YV Chandrachud, the longest-serving Chief Justice of India, Justice D Y Chandrachud was appointed as a Supreme Court judge in May 2016. He had earlier served in the Bombay High Court and the Allahabad High Court. Chandrachud was additional solicitor general of India from 1998 until his appointment as a judge of the Bombay high court starting on March 29, 2000. He was appointed chief justice of the Allahabad high court. Justice Chandrachud is known to have overturned several rulings that were believed to have turned obsolete with the passage of time. Some such verdicts, including those on the adultery law and the right to privacy, were handed down from his father himself.
Justice Ashok Bhushan
He obtained a law degree from the Allahabad University in 1979 and enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh on April 6, 1979. Bhushan then started practising law at the Allahabad high court until his elevation to the bench. He worked as standing counsel of the Allahabad University, State Mineral Development Corporation Limited and several municipal boards, banks and education institutions. He was sworn in as a judge of the high court of Kerala on July 10, 2014 and took charge as acting chief justice on August 1, 2014.He was sworn in as chief justice of the High Court on March 3, 2015. He was He was elevated as judge of the Supreme Court on May 13, 2016. Justice Ashok Bhushan was destined to be part of the historic Ayodhya land dispute judgement as his entry into the 5-member Constitution bench was due to the recusal of the two senior judges of the Supreme Court. Justices Bhushan and SA Nazeer made it to the bench after Justices NV Ramana and UU Lalit recused themselves from hearing the politically sensitive matter in the wake of objections raised by some litigants.
Justice S Abdul Nazeer
The only Muslim judge on the bench, he enrolled as an advocate on February 18, 1983 and practised in the high court of Karnataka. He was appointed as an additional judge of the Karnataka high court on May 12, 2003 and as a permanent judge on September 24, 2004. He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on February 17, 2017. He has been one of the most sought after judges in matters involving religion. Justice Nazeer was also the part of the five-judge bench in the ‘triple talaq’ matter but had delivered a minority verdict along with then Chief Justice of India J S Khehar. By the 3:2 verdict, the apex court had held issue of 1,400 year old practice of ‘triple talaq’ among Muslims as illegal and unconstitutional. However, in the Ayodhya verdict, the judge did not agree with the arguments of the Muslim parties and became a part of the unanimous verdict. Before becoming a part of the Constitution bench in the Ayodhya case, Justice Nazeer was part of a three-judge bench, including the then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Ashok Bhushan, which by 2:1 majority had declined to set up a larger bench for a relook of its 1994 verdict which had held that a “mosque is not an essential part of the practice of Islam”. Justice Nazeer was also a part of the Supreme Court’s nine-judge bench which had declared ‘right to privacy’ as a fundamental right in the August 2017 verdict.