Justice Surya Kant To Succeed BR Gavai As 53rd Chief Justice Of India

Justice Surya Kant, known for his role in landmark rulings on Article 370, electoral reforms, and the Pegasus spyware case, will be sworn in on Monday as the 53rd Chief Justice of India. He succeeds Justice B.R. Gavai, who demits office today. Appointed on October 30, Justice Kant will serve a tenure of nearly 15 months.

Born on February 10, 1962 in Hisar district of Haryana to a middle-class family, Justice Kant went from being a small-town lawyer to the country’s highest judicial office, where he has been part of several verdicts and orders of national importance and constitutional matters. He also has the distinction of standing 'first class first' in his Master’s degree in law in 2011 from Kurukshetra University.

The judge was part of the recent presidential reference on the powers of the Governor and President in dealing with bills passed by a state assembly. The verdict is keenly awaited with potential ramifications across states.

He was part of the bench that kept the colonial-era sedition law in abeyance, directing that no new FIRs be registered under it until a government review. In an order that emphasised grassroots democracy and gender justice, he led a bench that reinstated a woman sarpanch unlawfully removed from office and called out the gender bias in the matter, PTI noted.

Justice Kant was part of the bench that appointed a five-member committee headed by former top court judge Justice Indu Malhotra to probe the security breach during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Punjab in 2022, saying such matters required “a judicially trained mind”, PTI said.

(With inputs from PTI)