The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judicial authority and the highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also has the power of judicial review. The Supreme Court, which consists of the Chief Justice of India and a maximum of fellow 33 judges, has extensive powers in the form of original, appellate and advisory jurisdictions.
Capital punishment in India is a legal penalty for some crimes under the country's main substantive penal legislation, the Indian Penal Code, as well as other laws. Executions are carried out by hanging as the primary method of execution as given under Section 354(5) of the Criminal Code of Procedure, 1973 is "Hanging by the neck until dead", and is awarded only in the 'rarest of cases'.
The basic structure doctrine is a common law legal doctrine that the constitution of a sovereign state has certain characteristics that cannot be erased by its legislature. The doctrine is recognised in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Uganda. It was developed by the Supreme Court of India in a series of constitutional law cases in the 1960s and 1970s that culminated in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, where the doctrine was formally adopted. Bangladesh is perhaps the only legal system in the world which recognizes this doctrine with an expressed, written and rigid constitutional manner through article 7B of its Constitution.
Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud is an Indian jurist, who is the 50th and current chief justice of India since November 2022. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of India in May 2016. He has also previously served as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court from 2013 to 2016 and as a judge of the Bombay High Court from 2000 to 2013. He is also a former executive chairperson (ex officio) of the National Legal Services Authority.
Jagdish Sharan Verma was an Indian jurist who served as the 27th Chief Justice of India from 25 March 1997 to 18 January 1998. He was the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission from 1999 to 2003, and chairman of the Justice Verma Committee Report on Amendments to Criminal Law after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He remains one of India's most highly regarded Chief Justices and eminent jurists in its history.
Gyan Sudha Misra is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. Misra was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India on 30 April 2010. She has passed several landmarks and notable judgments in the Supreme Court of India including judgments on conflict of interest in the Srinivasan-BCCI matter, landmark euthanasia judgment - Aruna shaunbaug matter, and the Delhi Uphaar fire tragedy dissenting judgment holding the management liable for colossal loss of human lives and directing them to pay heavy compensation to be used for social causes like building trauma centre.
Dalveer Bhandari is one of the judges of the International Court of Justice. He is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is also the former chief justice of the Bombay High Court and a judge of the Delhi High Court.
Arun Kumar Mishra is the eighth and current chairperson of National Human Rights Commission of India. He is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is the former chief justice of the Calcutta High Court and Rajasthan High Court. He has also served as acting chief justice of the Rajasthan High Court. He is a former judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
G.S. Singhvi is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India. He retired on 11 December 2013.
Jagdish Singh Khehar is a former senior advocate and a former judge, who served as the 44th Chief Justice of India in 2017. Khehar is the first chief justice from the Sikh community. He has been a judge in Supreme Court of India from 13 September 2011 to 27 August 2017 upon superannuation. He served for a brief period but gave many landmark judgements such as the Triple Talaq and the Right to Privacy verdict. He was succeeded by Justice Dipak Misra.
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 former Chief Justice of the Patna High Court and Delhi High Court. He is the nephew of Justice Ranganath Misra, who was the 21st Chief Justice from 1990 to 1991.
The Indian Judicial collegium system where existing judges appoint judges to the nation's constitutional courts, has its genesis in, and continued basis resting on, three of its own judgments made by Supreme Court judges which are collectively known as the Three Judges Cases.
Arjan Kumar Sikri is an eminent jurist and a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He was sworn in as a Supreme Court judge on 12 April 2013. Earlier, he had served as the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He retired as senior most puisne judge of Supreme Court of India on 6 March 2019.
Uday Umesh Lalit is an Indian lawyer and former Supreme Court Judge, who served as the 49th Chief Justice of India. Previously, he has served as a judge of Supreme Court of India. Prior to his elevation as a judge, he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. Justice Lalit is one of the six senior counsels who have been directly elevated to the Supreme Court. He is currently a distinguished jurist and Professor of Law and Justice at O.P. Jindal Global University.
The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) was a proposed body which would have been responsible for the recruitment, appointment and transfer of judicial officers, legal officers and legal employees under the government of India and in all state governments of India. The commission was established by amending the Constitution of India through the 99th constitution amendment with the Constitution (Ninety-Ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 or 99th Constitutional Amendment Act-2014 passed by the Lok Sabha on 13 August 2014 and by the Rajya Sabha on 14 August 2014. The NJAC would have replaced the collegium system for the appointment of judges as invoked by the Supreme court via judicial fiat by a new system. Along with the Constitution Amendment Act, the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, was also passed by the Parliament of India to regulate the functions of the National Judicial Appointments Commission. The NJAC Bill and the Constitutional Amendment Bill, was ratified by 16 of the state legislatures in India, and subsequently assented by the President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 31 December 2014. The NJAC Act and the Constitutional Amendment Act came into force from 13 April 2015.
Dinesh Maheshwari is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is a former Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court & High Court of Meghalaya. He took the oath as a Judge of Rajasthan High Court on 2 September 2004. He was transferred to the Allahabad High Court and remained senior Judge at the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court from 2 March 2015. He took oath as Chief Justice of the High Court of Meghalaya on 24 February 2016. On transfer to Karnataka, Justice Maheshwari took oath as 30th Chief Justice of High Court of Karnataka on 12 February 2018. He took oath as Judge of the Supreme Court of India on 18 January 2019.
S. Abdul Nazeer is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India, who is serving as the 24th Governor of Andhra Pradesh. He is also former judge of the Karnataka High Court. He was appointed as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh on 12 February 2023.
Justice Gita Mittal was an Indian judge, now retired. She is the former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and the first woman judge to serve in that capacity. She has also served as the Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court while she was serving as a Judge of the Delhi High Court.
Bangalore Venkataramiah Nagarathna is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. She served as a judge of the Karnataka High Court from 2008 to 2021. Her father, E. S. Venkataramiah, was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India in 1989.
Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala is a judge of the Supreme Court of India since May 2022. He is a former judge of the Gujarat High Court.
