New Delhi: Chief Justice of India (CJI) U.U. Lalit Tuesday, October 11, recommended the name of D.Y. Chandrachud, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, to the Union government as his successor.
CJI Lalit submitted his letter of recommendation after the Union government, on October 7, sent him a letter seeking his recommendation for the post.
According to the established procedure of naming India’s chief justice, the Union law minister seeks the recommendation from the outgoing CJI before the end of their tenure and they, in turn, submit the name of the senior-most judge of the top court.
CJI Lalit, who was sworn in on August 27 this year, is set to retire on November 8. Thereafter, on November 9, Justice Chandrachud will be sworn-in as India’s 50th chief justice.
Justice Chandrachud will have a tenure of two years and will demit office on November 10, 2024.
A former judge of the Bombay high court and former chief justice of the Allahabad high court, Justice Chandrachud is currently the executive chairman of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).
Justice Chandrachud, regarded as one of the more ‘liberal’ judges on the top court’s roster, has delivered a number of notable judgments during his tenure. He was part of the full bench that delivered the landmark judgment in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India in which the court held that the right to privacy is a constitutionally protected right.
The next CJI also authored the recent judgment on the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act which upheld the right to free and safe abortions for both married and unmarried women until 24 weeks of pregnancy.
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The judgment was widely lauded not just for upholding the reproductive rights of women irrespective of their marital status, but for recognising marital rape for the first time, albeit only under the ambit of the MTP Act.
Justice Chandrachud was also made the subject of allegations of ‘misuse of office’ by one R.K. Pathan, who claims to be part of an organisation called the ‘Supreme Court and High Court Litigant Association’.
However, the Bar Council of India (BCI) rubbished these allegations as a “scurrilous and malicious attempt” to interfere with the functioning of the judiciary, noting that no details of Pathan or the organisation he claims to represent were furnished and that Pathan has a known history of filing bogus complaints and has even been held guilty of contempt of court in the past.