The 50th Chief Justice of India will be Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.
On October 11, 2022, all of the other judges of the Supreme Court attended a brief meeting where Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit proposed Justice D.Y. Chandrachud as his successor.
The selection of Justice Chandrachud as the 50th Chief Justice of India will begin with Chief Justice Lalit’s proposal to the government. Justice Chandrachud would be India’s first second-generation Chief Justice if the government’s consent is granted. His father, Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, served as India’s 16th and one of its longest-serving Chief Justices.
On November 8, Chief Justice Lalit will step down from his position as chief justice after a 74-day term. On November 9, Justice Chandrachud is anticipated to be sworn in and take over as Chief Justice of India. He will serve as Chief Justice for nearly two years until November 11, 2024, when he will retire.
On May 13, 2016, Justice Chandrachud was chosen to serve as a Supreme Court justice. Prior to that, as of October 31, 2013, he served as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. From March 29, 2000, till his appointment as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, Justice Chandrachud served as a judge on the Bombay High Court.
From 1998 until his nomination to the Bombay High Court Bench, he served as India’s Additional Solicitor General. He practiced law at the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court before being named senior advocate by the latter in June 1998.
…
The legal career of Justice Chandrachud comprises both academic study and real-world legal experience.
He taught Comparative Constitutional Law as a visiting professor at Oklahoma University School of Law and Mumbai University in the United States.
He has given lectures at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, the Australian National University, Harvard Law School, and Yale Law School. He spoke at conferences held by organizations affiliated with the UN, such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, International Labor Organization, United Nations Environmental Program, and High Commission on Human Rights.
He received his degree in economics with honors from St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi and went on to study law at Delhi University’s Campus Law University. Justice Chandrachud earned his LLM and Doctor of Jurisprudential Sciences (SJD) degrees from Harvard Law School in the United States.
Almost every significant Supreme Court decision has involved Justice Chandrachud during his tenure on the bench. His insightful opinions on the Bench were characterized by a progressive outlook, particularly in the areas of civil freedoms, individual rights, and women’s rights.
…
His most recent ruling had stated that abortion legislation may equally protect single women. A woman’s freedom to marry a partner of her choosing was supported by Justice Chandrachud, who also decriminalized adultery, defended the right of women serving as short service officers in the Army and Navy to be given consideration for permanent commissions. Women of menstrual age have the right to visit the Sabarimala shrine, according to Justice Chandrachud.
The nine-judge panel that supported privacy as a fundamental right that is essential to life and liberty and not a “elitist construct” included Justice Chandrachud.
The controversial ADM Jabalpur or Habeas Corpus case, which found that citizens have no right to life and liberty during the Emergency period, was deemed “seriously defective” in his opinion in the privacy ruling in 2017. His father wrote the main opinion in the ADM Jabalpur in 1976.
…
In addition to decriminalizing Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (consensual adult homosexual sex), Justice Chandrachud’s rulings also gave the government three months to take the initiative and create a framework for policy that would make it easier for transgender people to find employment, particularly in the civil aviation sector.
He was a member of the five-judge panel that unanimously supported the Hindu side’s right to the Ram Janmabhoomi property. In a recent case involving the Gyanvapi mosque, a Bench led by Justice Chandrachud attempted to strike a balance by ordering the District Magistrate of Varanasi to ensure the protection of the area where a Shivling was allegedly discovered while also directing that Muslims should not be prevented from entering the mosque to perform namaaz or other religious observances.
Read:
