Chief Justice of India: Chief Justice of India is the head of the judiciary system of India. According to Article 124 of the Constitution of India, The president of India appoints The Chief Justice of India. The senior-most judge of the Supreme Court is appointed as the Chief Justice of India. The panel of the Supreme Court consists of 31 judges (one Chief Justice and 30 other Justices). The Chief Justice of India is responsible for the allocation of work to other judges. H J Kania was the first Chief Justice of India, before appointment to the Supreme Court, he served as the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of India. The Current Chief Justice of India is Sharad Arvind Bobde.
List of all the Chief Justices of India
There have been 47 Chief Justices of India since 1950. Sharad Arvind Bobde is the current CJI. The list of all the Chief Justices of India has been given below.
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Chief Justice of India – List | Tenure |
H.J Kania | 26 January 1950 – 6 November 1951 |
M. Patanjali Sastri | 7 November 1951 – 3 January 1954 |
Mehr Chand Mahajan | 4 January 1954 – 22 December 1954 |
Bijan Kumar Mukherjea | 23 December 1954 – 31 January 1956 |
Sudhi Ranjan Das | 1 February 1956 – 30 September 1959 |
Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha | 1 October 1959 – 31 January 1964 |
P. B. Gajendragadkar | 1 February 1964 – 15 March 1966 |
Amal Kumar Sarkar | 16 March 1966 – 29 June 1966 |
Koka Subba Rao | 30 June 1966 – 11 April 1967 |
Kailas Nath Wanchoo | 12 April 1967 – 24 February 1968 |
Mohammad Hidayatullah | 25 February 1968 – 16 December 1970 |
Jayantilal Chhotalal Shah | 17 December 1970 – 21 January 1971 |
Sarv Mittra Sikri | 22 January 1971 – 25 April 1973 |
A. N. Ray | 26 April 1973 – 27 January 1977 |
Mirza Hameedullah Beg | 29 January 1977 – 21 February 1978 |
Y. V. Chandrachud | 22 February 1978 – 11 July 1985 |
P. N. Bhagwati | 12 July 1985 – 20 December 1986 |
Raghunandan Swarup Pathak | 21 December 1986 – 18 June 1989 |
Engalaguppe Seetharamaiah Venkataramiah | 19 June 1989 – 17 December 1989 |
Sabyasachi Mukharji | 18 December 1989 – 25 September 1990 |
Ranganath Misra | 26 September 1990 – 24 November 1991 |
Kamal Narain Singh | 25 November 1991 – 12 December 1991 |
Madhukar Hiralal Kania | 13 December 1991 – 17 November 1992 |
Lalit Mohan Sharma | 18 November 1992 – 11 February 1993 |
M. N. Venkatachaliah | 12 February 1993 – 24 October 1994 |
Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi | 25 October 1994 – 24 March 1997 |
J. S. Verma | 25 March 1997 – 17 January 1998 |
Madan Mohan Punchhi | 18 January 1998 – 9 October 1998 |
Adarsh Sein Anand | 10 October 1998 – 31 October 2001 |
Sam Piroj Bharucha | 1 November 2001 – 5 May 2002 |
Bhupinder Nath Kirpal | 6 May 2002 – 7 November 2002 |
Gopal Ballav Pattanaik | 8 November 2002 – 18 December 2002 |
V. N. Khare | 19 December 2002 – 1 May 2004 |
S. Rajendra Babu | 2 May 2004 – 31 May 2004 |
Ramesh Chandra Lahoti | 1 June 2004 – 31 October 2005 |
Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal | 1 November 2005 – 13 January 2007 |
K. G. Balakrishnan | 14 January 2007 – 12 May 2010 |
S. H. Kapadia | 12 May 2010 – 28 September 2012 |
Altamas Kabir | 29 September 2012 – 18 July 2013 |
P. Sathasivam | 19 July 2013 – 26 April 2014 |
Rajendra Mal Lodha | 27 April 2014 – 27 September 2014 |
H. L. Dattu | 28 September 2014 – 2 December 2015 |
T. S. Thakur | 3 December 2015 – 3 January 2017 |
Jagdish Singh Khehar | 4 January 2017 – 27 August 2017 |
Dipak Misra | 28 August 2017 – 2 October 2018 |
Ranjan Gogoi | 3 October 2018 – 17 November 2019 |
Sharad Arvind Bobde | 18 November 2019 – Incumbent(till 23 April 2021) |
Role of Chief Justice of India
- The Chief Justice is responsible for allocation of work to other judges.
- The Chief Justice administers the oath of office to the President In the absence of the President and the Vice-President, the Chief Justice sits as the Acting President of India
- The Chief Justice is the ex-officio Chancellor to most autonomous law schools in India.
- Other judges can refer the matter back to CJI in any case where they require it to be looked into by a larger bench of more judges.
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Eligibility
- The individual must be a citizen of India.
- The person must not exceed 65 years of age.
- In order to be eligible to be Chief Justice of India, the person must serve as a judge at High Court for at least five years or the person should be an advocate in the High court or the Supreme court for at least 10 years or a distinguished jurist.