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India
Justice DY Chandrachud Likely To Be Next Chief Justice Of India: Here's All You Need To Know
|Chief Justice UU Lalit, after a short tenure as the CJI, has recommended Justice DY Chandrachud as his successor. Chandrachud will be taking over as the 50th CJI, and here's looking back at the illustrious profile of judgements he had made in the past.
In accordance with the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), an outgoing Chief Justice of India (CJI) should initiate the process of appointing the next justice by naming a successor. As the 49th and current CJI UU Lalit is set to retire by November 8, he has put forth Justice DY Chandrachud's name as the recommendation as his successor to the Centre.
Justice Chandrachud will likely be serving as the 50th CJI for the next two years, starting from November 2022 to 2024. This also marks a historical moment in the Indian Judiciary, as for the first time, the son of a former CJI will be holding the same position. Justice Chandrachud's father, Y. V. Chandrachud, is the longest-serving CJI of India, and his legacy will now be taken ahead by his son.
A Long Line Of Academics And Rulings
Justice Chandrachud completed his BA with Honours in Economics from St Stephen's College in New Delhi, after which he took up an LLB course from the Campus Law Centre of Delhi University. Advancing his understanding of the legal arena further, he opted for an LLM and Doctor of Jurisprudential Sciences (SJD) degrees from the renowned Harvard Law School in the United States.
Returning to his home ground, he became one of the youngest lawyers to be designated senior advocate in the country and was soon raised to the ranks of Additional Solicitor General of India. In his tenure, he has been able to serve as the judge of the Bombay High Court, Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, and a judge of the Supreme Court.
As per an article on the Supreme Court Observer, appeared in several high-profile cases and made important rulings on subjects such as the Rights of Bonded Women Workers, Rights of HIV Positive Workers, Contract Labour, Rights of Religious and Linguistic Minorities, and so on.
Notable Rulings Made By Chandrachud
Among the notable rulings made by Justice DY Chandrachud during his tenure as a judge of the Supreme Court is that he overturned two judgments on adultery and the right to privacy made by his father, YV Chandrachud.
A few other cases that he appeared for are the Arnab Manoranjan Goswami v. State of Maharashtra (2021), Hariram Bhambhi v. Satyanarayan (2021), Nitisha v. Union of India (2021), and the Mahendra K.C. v. State of Karnataka (2021). During the Arnab Goswami hearing, Justice Chandrachud observed that "Law should not become a ruse for targeted harassment" and conveyed that "Liberty" survives through the "vigilance of her citizens, on the cacophony of the media and in the dusty corridors of courts alive to the rule of (and not by) law."
Several other cases that he had appeared for also shed light on the judiciary's ideas of people's rights. Nitisha v. Union of India, which was celebrated as a major win for women officers in the Indian Army, was one such case. In this ruling, he held that the administrative requirement imposed by the Indian Army while considering the Women Short Service Commissions Officers (WSSCO) for the grant of Permanent Commission (PC) is arbitrary and irrational.
Upon these grounds, he observed that it is not enough to proudly state that women officers are allowed to serve the nation in the Armed Forces, while the ground reality of their service conditions tells a different story. "A superficial sense of equality is not in the true spirit of the Constitution and attempts to make equality only symbolic", he added.
He has also actively voiced his opinions on sensitive subjects such as mental health and has made it a point to call out people who trivialise the same. The Mahendra K.C. v. State of Karnataka was one such case, where a single judge of the Karnataka High Court downplayed the idea of suicide and called a person committing it a "weakling".
A bench, including Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud and B.V. Nagarathna, JJ, responded to these events and held that such statements made by judges describing the manner in which a depressed person ought to have behaved diminishes the gravity of mental health issues. They observed that the "mental health of a person cannot be compressed into a one size fits all approach" and that it manifests in different forms among different people.
Considered a progressive thinker and law-abiding decision-maker, Justice Chandrachud is now expected to be carrying his illustrious line of rulings as the honourable Chief Justice of the country.