Sakina Tashrifwala
Published on: November 9, 2022 at 20:14 IST
On Wednesday, Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud took the oath required to become the 50th Chief Justice of India.
At the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the newly appointed Chief Justice was sworn in by President of India Draupadi Murmu.
Justice Chandrachud was suggested by outgoing Chief Justice UU Lalit as his replacement on October 11; the President accepted this recommendation on October 17.
Justice Chandrachud will serve as CJI till November 10, 2024, for a tenure of more than two years, making it one of the longest in recent memory.
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of Law Kiren Rijiju, Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh, Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Commerce Piyush Goyal, Speaker of the Lok Sabha Om Birla, Former Chief Justice of India UU Lalit, and other Supreme Court judges attended the event.
This is the first time a father-son team has led the Indian judicial system.
The father of Justice Chandrachud, Justice YV Chandrachud, served as India’s 16th Chief Justice from 2 February 1978 until 11 July 1985.
Justice Chandrachud is renowned for his liberal and progressive rulings, the most recent of which upheld unmarried women’s right to an abortion up to 24 weeks in gestation.
He was a member of the Constitution Benches that oversaw the decriminalisation of consenting homosexuality and the recognition of the right to privacy under Article 21.
He was a member of the group that supported women of all ages having the freedom to join the Sabarimala shrine.
The five-judge panel that rendered a decision in the Ayodhya-Babri Masjid dispute had Justice Chandrachud as a member.
On May 13, 2016, Justice Chandrachud was appointed to the Supreme Court.
Prior to that, beginning on October 31, 2013, he served as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. His judicial career began on March 29, 2000, when he was appointed to the Bombay High Court as a judge.
Prior to being named a judge, he served as India’s Additional Solicitor General from 1998 till the present.
The Bombay High Court named him a Senior Advocate in 1998.
Justice Chandrachud graduated from St Stephen’s College in New Delhi with a BA in Economics with Honors.
He graduated from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University’s LLB programme, and Harvard Law School, in the United States, where he also earned his LLM and Doctor of Jurisprudential Sciences (SJD) degrees.