New Delhi: President Droupadi Murmu has appointed Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjiv Khanna as the next chief justice of India, Union minister of state for law and justice Arjun Ram Meghwal said on Thursday (October 24).
Justice Khanna will assume office on November 11, a day after the incumbent Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud retires.
Murmu appointed Justice Khanna in consultation with CJI Chandrachud, who recommended his name to the government on October 15.
While such a recommendation is mere formality, it has been the practice for a long time and also finds mention in the memorandum of procedure that guides appointments in the Supreme Court and the high courts.
The memorandum says that the senior-most judge in the Supreme Court after the CJI must be selected to succeed the incumbent.
According to the Supreme Court’s website, Justice Khanna enrolled as an advocate with Delhi’s bar council in 1983.
Before he was became an additional judge in the Delhi high court in 2005, Justice Khanna served as senior standing counsel for the Income Tax Department and as standing counsel (civil) for Delhi. He became a permanent judge in the high court in 2006.
He became a Supreme Court judge in January 2019 and is due to retire on May 13, 2025. According to the Supreme Court Observer website, Justice Khanna’s six-month term as CJI will be a third of the average term of a CJI.
While CJI Chandrachud recommended Justice Khanna’s name as his successor on October 15, The Wire has learnt that there was a delay of at least two days in his sending his recommendation.
One reason why the chief justice kept his recommendation pending was so that he could, through the Supreme Court collegium, be allowed to recommend a name to fill the lone vacancy in the apex court, The Wire learned.
Sources said the other members of the collegium were not too keen to make a recommendation at that stage as the CJI had less than a month left before he remits office.
