List of Chief Justices of India

Last updated June 11, 2019

This is a list of all Chief Justices of India (CJI). There are a total of 46 Chief Justices of India that have served since the establishment of the Supreme Court of India in 1950, which superseded the Federal Court of India. The current Incumbent Chief Justice is Ranjan Gogoi, who entered office 3 October 2018.

Chief Justice of India presiding officer of the Supreme Court of India

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) is the head of the judiciary of India and the Supreme Court of India. The CJI also heads their administrative functions.

The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial court and the final court of appeal under the Constitution of India, the highest constitutional court, with the power of judicial review. Consisting of the Chief Justice of India and a maximum of 31 judges, it has extensive powers in the form of original, appellate and advisory jurisdictions.

Ranjan Gogoi 46th chief justice of India

Ranjan Gogoi is an Indian judge serving as the 46th and current Chief Justice of India since 3 October 2018. His term as Chief Justice ends on 17 November 2019. He is the first person from Northeast India to become Chief Justice of India.

List of Chief Justices of India

Federal Court of India (1937–50)

The Federal Court of India came into being on 1 September 1937. The seat of the court was the Chamber of Princes in the Parliament building in Delhi. It began with a Chief Justice and two puisne judges. The first Chief Justice was Sir Maurice Gwyer and the other two judges were Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman and M. R. Jayakar. It functioned until the establishment of the Supreme Court of India on 28 January 1950.

The Federal Court of India was a judicial body, established in India in 1937 under the provisions of the Government of India Act 1935, with original, appellate and advisory jurisdiction. It functioned until the Supreme Court of India was established in 1950. Although the seat of the Federal Court was at Delhi, however, a separate Federal Court for Pakistan was established in Pakistan in Karachi after the Partition of India. There was a right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London from the Federal Court of India.

The Chamber of Princes was an institution established in 1920 by a royal proclamation of King-Emperor George V to provide a forum in which the rulers of the princely states of India could voice their needs and aspirations to the colonial government of British India. It survived until the end of the British Raj in 1947.

Sir Maurice Linford Gwyer, was a British lawyer, judge, and academic administrator. He served as Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University from 1938 to 1950, and Chief Justice of India from 1937 to 1943). He is credited with having founded the prestigious college Miranda House in 1948 in Delhi, India. Gwyer Hall, the oldest men residence for the university students is named after him.

№	Name	Period of office		Length of term (days)	Bar	Appointed by
1	Sir Maurice Gwyer	1 October 1937	25 April 1943^‡	2,032	Inner Temple	The Marquess of Linlithgow
Acting	Sir Srinivas Varadachariar	25 April 1943	7 June 1943	43
2	Sir Patrick Spens	7 June 1943	14 August 1947	1,529	Inner Temple
3	Sir H. J. Kania	14 August 1947	26 January 1950	896	Bombay High Court	The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma

‡ – Date of Resignation

Supreme Court of India (1950–present)

Since the birth of the Republic of India on 26 January 1950, 46 people have served as the Chief Justice of India (CJI).^[1] While H. J. Kania is the inaugural CJI, the current incumbent is Ranjan Gogoi who is appointed as Chief Justice of India on 3 October 2018. Justice Y. V. Chandrachud is the longest serving Chief Justice (February 1978 – July 1985), while Kamal Narain Singh is the shortest serving one (21 November 1991 – 12 December 1991). Ranjan Gogoi is Incumbent Chief Justice.

Sir Harilal Jekisundas Kania was the first Chief Justice of India, dying in office in 1951. He was the chief justice of india from 1950 to 1951.

Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud was the 16th Chief Justice of India, serving from 22 February 1978 to the day he retired on 11 July 1985. Born in Pune in the state of Maharashtra, he was first appointed Judge to the Supreme Court of India on 28 August 1972 and is the longest-serving Chief Justice in India's history at 7 years and 4 months. His nickname was Iron hands after his well regarded unwillingness to let anything slip past him.

Kamal Narain Singh was the 22nd Chief Justice of India. He was educated at L.R.L.A. High School in Sirsa, Allahabad, Ewing Christian College in Allahabad and is a graduate of the University of Allahabad. At 17 days, his tenure as chief justice is the shortest.

№	Name	Period of office		Length of term (days)	Bar	Appointed by (President of India)
1	H. J. Kania	26 January 1950	6 November 1951^†	649	Bombay High Court	Rajendra Prasad
2	M. Patanjali Sastri	7 November 1951	3 January 1954	788	Madras High Court
3	Mehr Chand Mahajan	4 January 1954	22 December 1954	352	Punjab and Haryana High Court
4	Bijan Kumar Mukherjea	23 December 1954	31 January 1956^‡	404	Calcutta High Court
5	Sudhi Ranjan Das	1 February 1956	30 September 1959	1337	Calcutta High Court
6	Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha	1 October 1959	31 January 1964	1583	Patna High Court
7	P. B. Gajendragadkar	1 February 1964	15 March 1966	773	Bombay High Court	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
8	Amal Kumar Sarkar	16 March 1966	29 June 1966	105	Calcutta High Court
9	Koka Subba Rao	30 June 1966	11 April 1967^‡	285	Madras High Court
10	Kailas Nath Wanchoo	12 April 1967	24 February 1968	318	Allahabad High Court
11	Mohammad Hidayatullah ^[2]	25 February 1968	16 December 1970	1025	Bombay High Court	Zakir Hussain
12	Jayantilal Chhotalal Shah	17 December 1970	21 January 1971	35	Bombay High Court	Varahagiri Venkata Giri
13	Sarv Mittra Sikri	22 January 1971	25 April 1973	824	Lahore High Court
14	A. N. Ray	26 April 1973	27 January 1977	1372	Calcutta High Court
15	Mirza Hameedullah Beg	29 January 1977	21 February 1978	389	Allahabad High Court	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
16	Y. V. Chandrachud	22 February 1978	11 July 1985	2696	Bombay High Court	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
17	P. N. Bhagwati	12 July 1985	20 December 1986	526	Gujarat High Court	Zail Singh
18	Raghunandan Swarup Pathak	21 December 1986	18 June 1989^‡	940	Allahabad High Court	Zail Singh
19	Engalaguppe Seetharamiah Venkataramiah	19 June 1989	17 December 1989	181	Karnataka High Court	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
20	Sabyasachi Mukharji	18 December 1989	25 September 1990^†	281	Calcutta High Court
21	Ranganath Misra	26 September 1990	24 November 1991	424	Orissa High Court
22	Kamal Narain Singh	25 November 1991	12 December 1991	17	Allahabad High Court
23	Madhukar Hiralal Kania	13 December 1991	17 November 1992	340	Bombay High Court
24	Lalit Mohan Sharma	18 November 1992	11 February 1993	85	Patna High Court	Shankar Dayal Sharma
25	M. N. Venkatachaliah	12 February 1993	24 October 1994	619	Karnataka High Court
26	Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi	25 October 1994	24 March 1997	881	Gujarat High Court
27	J. S. Verma	25 March 1997	17 January 1998	298	Madhya Pradesh High Court
28	Madan Mohan Punchhi	18 January 1998	9 October 1998	264	Punjab and Haryana High Court	Kocheril Raman Narayanan
29	Adarsh Sein Anand	10 October 1998	31 October 2001	1,117	Jammu and Kashmir High Court
30	Sam Piroj Bharucha	1 November 2001	5 May 2002	185	Bombay High Court
31	Bhupinder Nath Kirpal	6 May 2002	7 November 2002	185	Delhi High Court
32	Gopal Ballav Pattanaik	8 November 2002	18 December 2002	40	Orissa High Court	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
33	V. N. Khare	19 December 2002	1 May 2004	499	Allahabad High Court
34	S. Rajendra Babu	2 May 2004	31 May 2004	29	Karnataka High Court
35	Ramesh Chandra Lahoti	1 June 2004	31 October 2005	517	Madhya Pradesh High Court
36	Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal	1 November 2005	13 January 2007	438	Delhi High Court
37	K. G. Balakrishnan	14 January 2007	12 May 2010	1,214	Kerala High Court
38	S. H. Kapadia	12 May 2010	28 September 2012	870	Bombay High Court	Pratibha Patil
39	Altamas Kabir	29 September 2012	18 July 2013	292	Calcutta High Court	Pranab Mukherjee
40	P. Sathasivam	19 July 2013	26 April 2014	281	Madras High Court
41	Rajendra Mal Lodha	27 April 2014	27 September 2014	153	Rajasthan High Court
42	H. L. Dattu	28 September 2014	2 December 2015	430	Karnataka High Court
43	T. S. Thakur	3 December 2015	3 January 2017	397	Jammu and Kashmir High Court
44	Jagdish Singh Khehar	4 January 2017	27 August 2017	235	Punjab and Haryana High Court
45	Dipak Misra	28 August 2017	2 October 2018	400	Orissa High Court	Ram Nath Kovind
46	Ranjan Gogoi	3 October 2018	Incumbent (till 17 November 2019)	250	Gauhati High Court	Ram Nath Kovind

Notes

^† – Date of Death
^‡ – Date of Resignation

Related Research Articles

The Chief Justice of the United States is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and as such the highest-ranking judge of the federal judiciary. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution grants plenary power to the President of the United States to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, appoint a chief justice, who serves until they resign, are impeached and convicted, retire, or die.

The Chief Justice of Canada is the presiding judge of the nine-member Supreme Court of Canada, the highest judicial body in Canada. As such, the chief justice is the highest-ranking judge of the Canadian court system. The Supreme Court Act grants plenary power to the Governor General to appoint—with the advice of the Prime Minister—a chief justice, who serves until they resign, die, are removed from office for cause, or attain the age of 75 years. By tradition, a new chief justice is chosen from among the Court's incumbent puisne justices.

Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah was the 25th Chief Justice of India. He served as Chief Justice from 1993 to 1994. He currently serves as the Chancellor of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, a Modern Gurukula, a place where the teacher-student interaction occurs in the backdrop of the process of Integral Education that includes the five dimensions of: Intellectual, Cultural, Physical, Service and Devotional. and on the Advisory Board of Foundation for Restoration of National Values, a society established in 2008 that strives to restore National and Cultural Values of India.

Sudhi Ranjan Das was the 5th Chief Justice of India, serving from 1 February 1956 to 30 September 1959. Das also served as chairman of The Statesman.

Raghunandan Swarup Pathak was the 18th Chief Justice of India. He was the son of Gopal Swarup Pathak, a former Vice President of India.

Paul Daniel Dinakaran Premkumar was the Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court. He resigned from the post following allegations of corruption and subsequent removal proceedings.

Kesab Chandra Gogoi was an Indian politician who was the Chief Minister of the state of Assam for two months in 1982. He was member of the Assam Legislative Assembly from Dibrugarh constituency. He died on August 5, 1998. His son Justice Ranjan Gogoi is the 46th chief justice of the Supreme Court of India.

Justice Dipak Misra is an Indian jurist who served as the 45th Chief Justice of India from 28 August 2017 till 2 October 2018. He is also a former Chief Justice of the Patna and Delhi High Courts. He is the nephew of Justice Ranganath Misra, who was the 21st Chief Justice from 1990 to 1991. He succeeded J. S. Khehar, the 44th Chief Justice.

Kuttiyil Mathew Joseph is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. Earlier he was the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court. Before his appointment as Chief Justice of the High Court of Uttarakhand on 31 July 2014, he had served as a Judge of Kerala High Court for more than 9 years.

Palanisamy Sathasivam is the current Governor of Kerala, in office since 2014. He previously served as the 40th Chief Justice of India from 2013 to 2014. Sathasivam is the second judge from Tamil Nadu to become the CJI, after M. Patanjali Sastri. He is also the first former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to be appointed as the Governor of a state..He is the second ever BJP government appointed Governer of Kerala State.

NEF Law College, or in its full name National Education Foundation Law College, is a law school located in Guwahati, Assam, India. It was established in 2006 and it offers various undergraduate and postgraduate law courses. The NEF Law College is recognized by Bar Council of India and it also got a status of ' Section 2(f) of UGC Act, 1956 ' from University Grants Commission. The Law College is affiliated to Gauhati University.

The Supreme Court of India was in crisis after an interview given by Supreme Court judges Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur, and Kurian Joseph, in which they spoke against the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.

Ramayyagari Subhash Reddy is the judge of Supreme Court of India since 2 November 2018. Prior to his elevation to the bench of Supreme Court, he was the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court. He is set to retire on 4 January 2022.

References

↑ "List of Retired Hon'ble Chief Justices". Archived from the original on 19 December 2016. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
↑ Also served as Acting President of India and Vice-President of India.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "List of Retired Hon'ble Chief Justices". Archived from the original on 19 December 2016. Retrieved 6 January 2012.

[2] Also served as Acting President of India and Vice-President of India.

v t e Judiciary of India
Supreme Court	Supreme Court of India Chief Justice of India List of Chief Justices of India List of sitting judges of Supreme Court
High Courts	High Courts of India List of Chief Justices of High Courts of India List of sitting judges of High Courts
District Courts	District Courts of India List of district courts in India
Judicial Magistrate of First Class	Courts of Judicial Magistrate of First Class Gram Nyayalayas
Judicial Magistrate of Second Class	Courts of Judicial Magistrate of Second Class
Constitution	Constitution of India Law of India Indian Penal Code
Appointment of Judges	National Judicial Appointments Commission Collegium System

List of Chief Justices of India

Contents

List of Chief Justices of India

Federal Court of India (1937–50)

Supreme Court of India (1950–present)

Notes

See also

Related Research Articles

References