Ground ready for Justice Surya Kant to succeed CJI B.R. Gavai

Letter requesting Justice Gavai to name his successor is expected to be delivered either by Thursday evening or on 25 October

CJI B.R. Gava is one of the few Dalit justices who hold a high office in the judiciary.
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The government on 23 October initiated the process to appoint the next CJI (chief justice of India) as incumbent Justice B.R. Gavai is set to demit his office.

According to people familiar with the procedure for appointing judges to the Supreme Court and high courts, the letter requesting Justice Gavai to name his successor is expected to be delivered either by Thursday evening or on 25 October.

As per the Memorandum of Procedure — the set of guidelines governing the appointment, transfer and elevation of judges — the position of Chief Justice of India is traditionally offered to the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office.

The Union law minister at the appropriate time seeks the recommendation of the outgoing CJI for the appointment of his successor. Conventionally, this communication is sent around a month before the incumbent retires upon attaining the age of 65.

Following this convention, Justice Surya Kant, currently the senior-most judge after the CJI, is next in line to assume leadership of the Indian judiciary.

Born on 10 February 1962 in Hisar district, Haryana, to a middle-class family, Justice Surya Kant was elevated to the Supreme Court on 24 May 2019. Once appointed, he will serve as Chief Justice until his retirement on 9 February 2027, giving him a tenure of nearly 15 months.

Justice Surya Kant brings to the top judicial office a distinguished career spanning over two decades, marked by several landmark rulings on constitutional law, democracy, corruption, environment, and gender equality.

He was a member of the historic bench that kept the colonial-era sedition law in abeyance, directing that no new First Information Reports be registered under it until the government completed its review.

Justice Surya Kant also pushed for transparency in elections, directing the Election Commission to disclose details of 65 lakh excluded voters in Bihar, and advanced gender representation by ordering that one-third of seats in all bar associations, including the Supreme Court Bar Association, be reserved for women.

He was also part of the bench that appointed a five-member committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Indu Malhotra to probe the security breach during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2022 Punjab visit, stating that such matters required 'a judicially trained mind'.

In another significant verdict, he upheld the One Rank, One Pension scheme for defence forces, describing it as constitutionally valid. He continues to hear petitions filed by women officers in the armed forces seeking parity in permanent commission.

Justice Surya Kant also sat on the seven-judge bench that overruled the 1967 Aligarh Muslim University judgment, paving the way for reconsideration of the institution’s minority status.

He was part of the bench that heard the Pegasus spyware case, which appointed a panel of cyber experts to investigate allegations of unlawful surveillance. During the proceedings, the bench famously observed that the state cannot be given a 'free pass under the guise of national security'.

With inputs from PTI

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