NEW DELHI: Justice Surya Kant, who has been part of several landmark verdicts, including on abrogation of Article 370 removing Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and Bihar electoral rolls revision, took oath as the 53rd Chief Justice of India on Monday.
He succeeds Justice B R Gavai.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath to Justice Kant at a brief ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan. He took the oath in Hindi in the name of God.
Justice Kant was appointed as the next CJI on October 30 and will remain in the post for nearly 15 months. He will demit office on February 9, 2027 on attaining the age of 65 years.
Vice President C P Radhakrishnan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were among the senior leaders who attended the ceremony.
Soon after being sworn in, Justice Kant went up to Prime Minister Modi to greet him.
Later, in a post on X, Modi shared pictures of the swearing in ceremony.
“Attended the oath taking ceremony of Justice Surya Kant as the Chief Justice of India. Best wishes to him for his tenure ahead,” the prime minister wrote.
A customary group photograph was also clicked with President Murmu, Vice President Radhakrishnan, Prime Minister Modi, CJI Kant, former CJI Gavai and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal posing for the camera.
Former vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar was also present and was among those who greeted the new CJI on assuming office.
Justice Gavai, who demitted office of the CJI on Sunday, hugged his successor.
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 from Kurukshetra University.
Justice Kant, who penned several notable judgments in the Punjab and Haryana HC, was appointed the chief justice of Himachal Pradesh HC on October 5, 2018.
His tenure as an SC judge is marked by verdicts on the abrogation of Article 370, free speech and citizenship rights.
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.
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.
Justice Kant also nudged the Election Commission to disclose the details of 65 lakh voters excluded from the draft electoral rolls in Bihar while hearing a batch of petitions challenging the poll panel’s decision to undertake Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters list in the poll-bound state.
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.
He is also credited with directing that one-third of seats in bar associations, including the Supreme Court Bar Association, be reserved for women.
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 Modi’s visit to Punjab in 2022, saying such matters required “a judicially trained mind”.
He also upheld the One Rank-One Pension scheme for defence forces, calling it constitutionally valid, and continues to hear petitions of women officers in the armed forces seeking parity in permanent commission.
Justice Kant was on the seven-judge bench that overruled the 1967 Aligarh Muslim University judgment, opening the way for reconsideration of the institution’s minority status.
He was also part of the bench which heard the Pegasus spyware case and which appointed a panel of cyber experts to probe allegations of unlawful surveillance, famously stating that the state cannot get a “free pass under the guise of national security”.
