Justice Surya Kant Sworn In as CJI
New Delhi: Justice Surya Kant was sworn in as Chief Justice of India (CJI) by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday (November 24).
The 53rd person to serve as CJI, Justice Kant is scheduled to demit office a little over 14 months from now, on February 9, 2027.
After taking oath of office at Rashtrapati Bhavan's Ganatantra Mandap – formerly Durbar Hall – Justice Kant walked over to and shook hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and greeted other top officials present, including the vice president, the home minister and the Lok Sabha speaker. He was also embraced by his immediate predecessor, Justice B.R. Gavai.
Over the weekend, Justice Kant had focussed attention on the need to clear the Supreme Court's growing backlog of cases.
Describing the top court's arrears as his “first and foremost” challenge, Justice Kant noted that they currently number at over 90,000.
“When I am speaking of arrears, I must also identify the solution. And one of the easiest solutions, and which can be the game-changer … seems to be mediation,” the Indian Express quoted him as saying.
Having become a judge of the Supreme Court in May 2019, 63-year-old Justice Kant has been involved in various important and politically sensitive judgments and orders.
Last Thursday he was on the five-judge bench that said that while the court may issue a mandamus to governors to decide on a state Bill in the event of a prolonged delay, it cannot impose timelines on them or on the president to adjudicate on pending legislation. The Constitution does not allow for the court to grant ‘deemed assent’ to pending Bills either, the bench had said.
He is also presiding over the bench that is hearing challenges to the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of voter rolls in a number of states and Union territories. While hearing petitions against the SIR in Bihar, Justice Kant's bench had elected to let the exercise proceed but allowed aggrieved persons to submit Aadhaar with their claims and objections, and directed the Election Commission to publish the roughly 65 lakh names excluded from its draft list.
Earlier this year, Justice Kant had granted bail to political scientist Ali Khan Mahmudabad in the Haryana police's case against him for his social media posts about Operation Sindoor and scrutinising the government's optics on religious unity. While doing so he also directed the formation of a special investigation team to probe Khan's remarks and implied the professor was trying to “get cheap popularity” during a difficult time.
Other notable cases the judge has been part of are the issue of bail to YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia, the Supreme Court's judgement approving the reading down of Article 370 and setting a deadline for assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, and its hearings on the use of the Pegasus spyware against journalists, opposition politicians and others.
Before becoming a Supreme Court judge, Justice Kant was Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh high court for over seven months in 2018-19. Prior to that, the Hisar, Haryana native was a judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court.
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