75 Years of Supreme Court: India To Welcome New CJI Justice Khanna

As the honourable Supreme Court of India completes its 75 years of judicial service, the country is all set to appoint its new chief justice. Justice Sanjiv Khanna was appointed the 51st Chief Justice of India on 24 October 2024. He is to succeed 65-year-old Justice DY Chandrachud in November after an oath ceremony.

“In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution of India, the honourable President, after consultation with the honourable Chief Justice of India, is pleased to appoint Shri Justice Sanjiv Khanna, judge of the Supreme Court of India, as Chief Justice of India with effect from 11 November 2024”, said the law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on a post over social media website X.

Knowing the New Chief Justice

Justice Khanna began his legal career by enrolling in the Bar Council of Delhi, in 1983 and started his practice in district courts to later work in the High Court of Delhi.  His expertise is in various fields of law, including constitutional law, direct taxation, commercial law, company law, arbitration, land law, medical negligence and environmental legalities. He was also a senior standing counsel for the income tax department.

Justice Khanna’s father, Justice Devraj Khanna, is a retired judge from the Delhi High Court. His uncle Justice, Hansraj Khanna is also an esteemed judge, remembered for his dissenting judgement on the ADM Jabalpur case during the emergency time.

In the year 2005, Justice Khanna was elevated as an additional judge of the Delhi High Court. The following year, he was made a permanent judge. In January 2019, Justice Khanna was promoted to the judge of the Supreme Court and was ranked 33 in the combined seniority list of High Court judges on an India basis. Despite many judges surpassing him in this seniority list, the then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi recommended him over all the others on grounds of merit and integrity.

During his career, he has practised in many district-level and state-level courts. Currently, Justice Khanna is the executive chairman of the National Legal Services Authority and is also a member of the governing council of the National Judicial Academy of Bhopal.

His name is associated with many historic judgements like the 2024 ruling that declared the electoral bond scheme unconstitutional. His argument in the case was that the scheme violated the right to information as ‘donor identities were asymmetrically known to bank officers’. Another important judgement of his career was the 2023 abrogation of article 370 which ended the special status for Jammu and Kashmir. Justice Khanna was part of the five-judge bench and argued that Article 370 represented ‘asymmetrical federalism and that its removal would not affect India’s federal structure’. In the same year, his notable judgement to directly grant a divorce under Article 142 based on the ‘irretrievable breakdown of marriage’ was also a landmark judgement in the history of feminist legal empowerment in India.

Justice Khanna’s Tenure

The vast legal career that Justice Khanna has is a marker of his commitment towards transparency and justice, which places him as a very important figure in the judicial operations of India. It is because of this consistency in his arguments in the court, that he was appointed as the new Chief Justice of India. He will hold the office for a six-month tenure and is to retire on May 13, 2024.

His appointment comes after the incumbent Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, formally recommended Justice Sanjiv Khan as the new CJI. Justice Chandrachud wrote to the centre proposing Justice Khanna’s appointment before he demitted the office on November 11, 2024. Justice Chandrachud was appointed as the Chief Justice in 2022 for two years, making it one of the longest terms ever served by any chief justice in the recent past. This falls in line with his father, former Supreme Court judge YV Chandrachud, who has been the longest-serving chief justice for seven long years.