Tanisha Rana
Published on: October 17, 2022 at 21:03 IST
Justice DY Chandrachud was named the 50th Chief Justice of India on Monday by the Central government.
After current Chief Justice UU Lalit leaves office on November 8, 2022, Justice Chandrachud will assume leadership of the Supreme Court.
He will serve as India’s Chief Justice for two years before stepping down on November 10, 2024.
As is customary, Justice Chandrachud’s name was proposed for the position of CJI on October 11 by current CJI Lalit.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, the President is pleased to appoint Dr. Justice Dhananjaya Yashwant Chandrachud, Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the Chief Justice of India with effect from 09th November, 2022,” the notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice said.
Career
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 practised law at the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court before being named senior advocate by the latter in June 1998.
Education
He received his degree in economics with honours 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.
Judgments by Justice Chandrachud
Almost every significant Supreme Court decision has involved Justice Chandrachud during his tenure on the bench. His insightful opinions on the Bench were characterised 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 decriminalised 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 bench 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 judgment in 2017.
His father wrote the main opinion in the ADM Jabalpur in 1976.
In addition to decriminalising 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 bench that unanimously supported the Hindu side’s claim to the Ram Janmabhoomi Land.
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.