Supreme Court: India: Chief Justices
Contents |
Chief Justices Of India
Name Tenure
Harilal RS,. Kania ................................................................... 26 January 1950—6 November 1951
M. Patanjali Sastri .............................................................. 7 November 1951—3 January 1954
Mehr Chand Mahajan ....................................................... 4 January 1954—22 December 1954
B.K. Mukherjea .................................................................. 23 December 1954—31 January 1956
S.R. Das ............................................................................... 1 February 1956—30 September 1959
Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha ........................................... 1 October 1959—31 January 1964
P.B. Gajendragadkar .......................................................... 1 February 1964—15 March 1966
A.K. Sarkar ......................................................................... 16 March 1966—29 June 1966
K. Subba Rao ...................................................................... 30 June 1966—11 April 1967
K.N. Wanchoo .................................................................... 12 April 1967—24 February 1968
M. Hidayatullah ................................................................ 25 February 1968—16 December 1970
RS,.C. Shah .............................................................................. 17 December 1970—21 January 1971
S.M. Sikri ............................................................................. 22 January 1971—25 April 1973
A.N. Ray ............................................................................. 26 April 1973—28 January 1977
M.H. Beg ............................................................................. 29 January 1977—21 February 1978
Y.V. Chandrachud .............................................................. 22 February 1978—11 July 1985
Prafullachandra Natvarlal Bhagwati................................... 12 July 1985—20 December 1986
R.S. Pathak .......................................................................... 21 December 1986—18 June 1989
E.S. Venkataramaiah ......................................................... 19 June 1989—17 December 1989
S. Mukherjee ....................................................................... 18 December 1989—25 September 1990
Ranganath Mishra ............................................................. 25 September 1990—24 November 1991
K.N. Singh .......................................................................... 25 November 1991—12 December 1991
M.H. Kania ......................................................................... 13 December 1991—17 November 1992
L.M. Sharma ....................................................................... 18 November 1992—11 February 1993
M.N. Venkatachalaiah ...................................................... 12 February 1993—24 October 1994
A.M. Ahmadi ..................................................................... 25 October 1994—24 March 1997
RS,.S. Verma ............................................................................ 25 March 1997—18 January 1998
M.M. Punchhi ..................................................................... 18 January 1998—9 October 1998
A.S. Anand.......................................................................... 10 October 1998—31 October 2001
S.P. Bharucha ...................................................................... 1 November 2001—5 May 2002
B.N. Kirpal .......................................................................... 6 May 2002—7 November 2002
G.B. Pattanaik .................................................................... 8 November 2002—18 December 2002
V.N. Khare .......................................................................... 19 December 2002—1 May 2004
S. Rajendra Babu ................................................................ 02 May 2004—31 May 2004
R.C. Lahoti .......................................................................... 01 June 2004—31 October 2005
Y.K. Sabharwal ................................................................... 01 November 2005—13 January 2007
K.G. Balakrishnan.............................................................. 14 January 2007—11 May 2010
S.H. Kapadia ...................................................................... 12 May 2010—28 Sep 2012
Altamas Kabir ...................................................................29 September 2012 18 July 2013
P. Sathasivam.....................................................................19 July 2013---26 April 2014
Rajendra Mal Lodha..................................................................27 April 2014 27 September 2014
H. L. Dattu.................................................................. 28/09/2014 - 02/12/2015
Tirath Singh Thakur..................................................................... 03/12/2015-03/01/2017
Jagdish Singh Khehar........................................................04/01/2017-...28 Aug 2017
Dipak Misra.................................................................. 28 Aug 2017- 2 Oct 2018
Ranjan Gogoi...................................................................2 Oct 2018
Notes
Justice Dipak Misra became the 45th Chief Justice of India, and the first in 67 years to have `Z' category security cover. On July 30, 2015, in a pre dawn hearing, a Justice Mis ra-led bench had rejected 1993 Mumbai blasts condemned prisoner Yakub Memon's last-gasp plea for commutation of his death penalty . Shortly thereafter, a threat letter necessitated `Z' category security for him. Justice Misra becomes the third person from Odisha to become CJI. (Dhananjay Mahapatra |Dipak Misra is CJI, will serve till Oct 2018 |Aug 29 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi))
Career paths of CJIs, SC judges
Three CJIs in a row from Karnataka High Court
Oneindia | 4th Dec, 2015
Source: www.oneindia.com
Justices Dattu, Thakur and Kehar: Karnataka High Court's rare distinction
For Karnataka, Justice T S Thakur being sworn in as the Chief Justice of India is quite a rare distinction. He took over from Justice H L Dattu and after his retirement, going by the seniority list, it would be Justice Kehar who is likely to be the Chief Justice of India.
Now what is common is that all three have served in the Karnataka High Court. Justice Kehar had in fact served as the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court before his elevation to the Supreme Court.
Three Chief Justices and the Karnataka connection:
Justice H L Dattu who just retired as the Chief Justice of India was appointed as Judge of the Karnataka High Court on December 12 1995. He was then transferred to the Chattisgarh high Court and elevated as its Chief Justice.
He was then transferred to the Kerala High Court before being appointed as a Supreme Court judge in 2008. Justice T S Thakur was appointed as an Additional Judge of the High Court of J & K on 16th February, 1994 and transferred as Judge of the High Court of Karnataka in March, 1994.
He was appointed as a permanent Judge in September, 1995. Was transferred as a Judge of the High Court of Delhi in July 2004. He was then appointed as Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court on 09.04.2008 and took over as Chief Justice of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana on August 11, 2008.
He was elevated as Judge of Supreme Court and assumed charge on 17.11.2009 and appointed as Chief Justice of India on 03.12.2015. He is due to retire on January 4th 2017.
After Justice Thakur retires, going by the list, Justice J S Kehar will be appointed as the Chief Justice of India. Although Justice Anil R Dave is senior, he will retire on November 18 2016. Post his retirement, Justice Kehar who has a tenure up to August 28 2017 will be the senior most judge. Following Justice Thakur's retirement on January 4 2017, Justice Kehar will take over as Chief Justice of India and would have a tenure of 8 months. Justice Kehar was elevated to the Bench of High Court of Punjab and Haryana, at Chandigarh, on February 8, 1999. He was appointed as Acting Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court twice i.e., with effect from August 02, 2008, and again, with effect from November 17, 2009.
He was elevated as Chief Justice of the High Court of Uttarakhand, at Nainital, on November 29, 2009 and thereafter he was transferred as Chief Justice of High Court of Karnataka, where he assumed his office on August 8, 2010. He was appointed judge of the Supreme Court on September 13, 2011.
Powers, status
SC: CJI is master of roster, 'first among equals'
July 6, 2018: The Times of India
The Supreme Court (SC) reiterated that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) is the master of the roster and has the power to allocate cases in the top court because he is the first among equals in the judiciary.
The SC said this while pronouncing judgement on a plea by former law minister Shanti Bhushan challenging the existing roster practice of allocation of cases.
The top court refused to accept Bhushan's contention that the allocation of cases should be done by the SC collegium. Bhushan had also said case allocation should not be prerogative of the CJI. It added that the the apex court and the CJI represent the judiciary and act as their spokespersons.
"It is the moral responsibility of the CJI to look after the court and case management," said the apex court.
A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan had on April 27 reserved its verdict on the petition, which was opposed by Attorney General K K Venugopal who had said that any attempt to delegate the power of allocation of cases to other judges would lead to "chaos".
In his PIL, Shanti Bhushan has alleged that "master of roster" cannot be an "unguided and unbridled" discretionary power, exercised arbitrarily by the CJI by hand-picking the benches of select judges or by assigning cases to particular judges.
The petition assumes significance in light of the January 12 press conference where four senior-most judges of the top court - Justices J Chelameswar (since retd), Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph - had said the situation in the top court was "not in order" and many "less than desirable" things have taken place.
During the arguments, Venugopal had stressed the need for "unity" among the judges of the top court and said that Bhushan's petition to vest the power to allocate cases to the five-member collegium might lead to "conflict" among judges on who would hear which matter, besides multiplicity of authorities.
"It is essential that there should be one person doing this and if it has to be one person, then it has to be the CJI," the Attorney General had told the bench.
Senior counsel Dushyant Dave and advocate Prashant Bhushan, who had appeared for Shanti Bhushan, had questioned the manner in which some "sensitive cases" were allocated to particular benches in the court in contravention of the rules.
Dave had referred to constitutional provisions and the Supreme Court Rules and said that there was "ambiguity" in the rules as to whether the CJI possessed the power to frame the roster.
The petitioner had also made it clear that the plea and its prayer was to strengthen the court and was not directed against any individual.
The sources of this article
Till 2011:
INDIA 2012
A REFERENCE ANNUAL
Compiled by
RESEARCH, REFERENCE AND TRAINING DIVISION
PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
See also
Supreme Court: India (mainly SC's rulings)
Supreme Court, India: Administrative issues
Supreme Court: India: Chief Justices
