Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar appointed CJI

R Sedhuraman

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Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, December 19

Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, the second senior most judge of the Supreme Court, has been appointed Chief Justice of India (CJI). He will be the first Sikh to occupy the high constitutional office. He will take over as the 44th CJI on January 4, succeeding Justice TS Thakur.

The appointment of Justice Khehar has been cleared by President Pranab Mukherjee, an official announcement said tonight. Outgoing CJI Thakur had recommended the name of Justice Khehar for the post earlier this month. Under the existing practice, the incumbent CJI recommends the appointment of his successor.

Justice Khehar will be sworn in by the President on January 4 and will steer the destiny of Indian judiciary for about eight months before retiring on August 27. He had become a judge of the apex court on September 13, 2011.

Justice JS Khehar has headed two Constitution Benches of the apex court, one that had revived the Collegium system of appointing higher judiciary judges and the other that restored the Congress government headed by Chief Minister Nabam Tuki in Arunachal Pradesh.

He was associated with the impeachment proceedings of apex court Justice V Ramaswami and Karnataka HC Chief Justice PD Dinakaran.

He appeared as counsel to defend Justice Ramaswami, who survived the impeachment proceedings in the Lok Sabha in the 1990s, before the Judges Inquiry Committee headed by Justice PB Sawant of the apex court. As an apex court judge, he was part of the judges’ inquiry panel that had gone into complaints of misconduct against Justice Dinakaran.

Born on August 28, 1952, he graduated in science from Government College, Chandigarh, in 1974 and got the LLB degree from the Panjab University in 1977. He completed LLM from the same university in 1979, getting the Gold Medal for having stood first in the university.

He was appointed as Judge of the Punjab and Haryana HC on February 8, 1999 and as Acting Chief Justice of the same HC twice, first on August 2, 2008 and again on November 17, 2009. He was elevated as Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand HC on November 29, 2009 and was transferred as Chief Justice of Karnataka HC, where he assumed his office on August 8, 2010.