CJI Lalit recommends Justice Chandrachud\'s name as his successor

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit on Tuesday recommended the name of Justice Dhananjaya Yashwant Chandrachud, the second most senior judge of the Supreme Court, to succeed him as the 50th CJI on November 9.

The CJI recommended the name of Justice Chandrachud as his successor in a letter to Union law minister Kiran Rijiju. The law minister, in an October 7 communication to Justice Lalit, had asked him to name his successor.

Justice Lalit, after a short tenure of 74 days, will demit office on November 8.  November 7 will be his last working day as November 8 is a holiday on account of Guru Nanak’s birthday.

History will be created when Justice Chandrachud is sworn in as the 50th CJI by President Droupadi Murmu on November 9. It will be the first father-son CJI duo in the history of the Supreme Court; his father Justice Y.V. Chandrachud was the longest-serving CJI.

Justice Chandrachud has authored a number of judgments, including the one holding privacy a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.

In the Aadhaar judgment, he differed with the majority view and had said, "Creating strong privacy protection laws and instilling safeguards may address or at the very least assuage some of the concerns associated with the Aadhaar scheme, which severely impairs informational self-determination, individual privacy, dignity and autonomy."

Though the Ayodhya title suit judgment did not indicate its author’s name as is the practice, going by the style of the judgment its authorship was attributed to him.

Justice Chandrachud also authored the judgment that rejected the plea for a SIT probe into the death of Judge B.H. Loya, who was earlier holding trial in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh "staged" shootout case. The judgment held that Judge Loya died of natural causes.

Justice Chandrachud, born on November 11, 1959, Justice Chandrachud was the judge of the Bombay High Court from March 29, 2000, until his appointment as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court on October 31, 2013. He was elevated to the Supreme Court on May 13, 2016.

He had served as additional solicitor general of India from 1998 until his appointment as a judge in the Bombay High Court. He was designated as a senior advocate by the Bombay High Court in June 1998.

An alumnus of Harvard Law School, Justice Chandrachud obtained an LLM degree and a Doctorate in Juridical Sciences (SJD) from Harvard Law School, USA.