As part of his efforts to clear the decks for the appointment of the 50th Chief Justice of India, CJI U U Lalit on Tuesday recommended the appointment of Justice D Y Chandrachud, the second most senior judge of the Supreme Court, to replace him.
Upon approval by the government, Justice Chandrachud will serve as Chief Justice of India for two years. His father, Y V Chandrachud, also achieved over seven years as Chief Justice of India.
Justice Chandrachud was presented with a copy of the recommendation letter by Chief Justice Lalit at a meeting of Supreme Court judges on Tuesday morning.
The government sent a letter to the Chief Justice of India last week, requesting that he name his successor.
The oath ceremony for the new CJI will be held on the 9th of November.
CJI Lalit has been serving for less than three months in the office. Justice Chandrachud will be in the office for two years, from November 10 to 2024.
A law student from Delhi University, Justice Chandrachud was able to earn his LL.M degree as well as the Doctor of Juridical Science from Harvard Law School. Harvard Law School.
He was a lawyer before the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court and was appointed as a Senior Advocate in the Bombay High Court in June 1998.
He was a Solicitor General between 1998 and the time he was appointed a Judge at the Bombay High Court on March 29th 2000. He also served as Director of the Maharashtra Judicial Academy.
Justice Chandrachud took over as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court on October 31st, 2013, and was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court on May 13, 2016.
In his time at the Supreme Court, Justice Chandrachud wrote some important decisions.
In the landmark case of Justice K S Puttaswamy (retd) & Another vs Union of India & Others, an eight-judge bench that included his privacy was recognized as an essential right. In the following, as part of the five-judge panel that he was a part of, he considered the constitutionality of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Subsidies Financial, Other Beneficiaries, and Services) Act of 2016. Although most judges affirmed that Act, Justice Chandrachud held that it was unconstitutionally passed as it was a Money Bill.
In his concurring judgment on the Navtej Singh Johar and Others in the Navtej Johar and Others Union of India case, where the Supreme Court decriminalised Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) permitting same-sex relationships to be legal, Justice Chandrachud said it was an “antiquated and anachronistic colonial-era law forcing” sexual minorities “to live in hiding, in fear, and as second-class citizens”.
In April, the bench of three judges that comprised him dismissed petitions that doubted his death CBI Judge B H Loya and sought an inquiry into it. The bench ruled that it was a “sudden, natural death” and “there was no evidence to suggest any inconsistencies in the history, clinical findings, and autopsy report”.
In an important decision on reproductive rights that the Supreme Court bench headed by Mr. Justice widened the rights to legal and secure abortions during the first 24 weeks pregnancy for women who are single and unmarried and said it was an individual “right of every woman to make reproductive choices without undue interference from the State”.
He also was on the 5 judge Supreme Court bench, which decided the Ayodhya title dispute.
As the head of the eCommittee that makes up the Supreme Court, he played an essential part in making online hearings feasible during the Covid-19 epidemic and in the launch of live streaming of court proceedings, beginning with the hearing of cases before Constitution benches.