The Supreme Court Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde was sworn in on Monday as the 47th Chief Justice of India by President Ram Nath Kovind.

Chief Justice SA Bobde, 63, succeeds Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi; he will serve as the leader of the judiciary till April 23, 2021. Justices NV Ramana, UU Lalit and DY Chandrachud are next in line.

Chief Justice Bobde was on the benches that decided the Ayodhya land dispute case in 2019, held privacy to be a fundamental right in 2017, and clarified in 2015 that no Indian citizen without an Aadhaar card could be denied government services.

After serving as the SC judge for eight long years, Justice Bobde becomes the 47th CJI and will serve till April 23, 2021. The development comes a few days after present CJI Ranjan Gogoi initiated the process of appointment of Justice Bobde as the next CJI and wrote to the Centre suggesting his name.
Bobde has taken over the apex office of the Indian judiciary as the 47th Chief Justice of the country, replacing Ranjan Gogoi.

Who Is Justice Bobde? 

Justice Bobde is the second senior-most judge in the Supreme Court, appointed as the judiciary’s top post. He is a former Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and was elevated to the top court on April 12, 2013.

The 63-year old Bobde was born in Nagpur, Maharashtra on 24 April 1955 and received his Bachelor of Arts and law degrees from Nagpur University. In 1978, he enrolled in the roll of the Bar Council of Maharashtra. He practised at the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court for several years and was designated a senior advocate in 1998.

In March 2000, he was elevated to the Bombay High Court bench as an additional judge. Bobde was sworn in as Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice in October 2012.

Major Cases And Judgements

Bobde was part of the in-house panel in charge of the most controversial cases, including that of allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice Gogoi.

Following several closed doors hearings, the in-house panel headed by Justice Bobde gave a clean chit to Gogoi, saying ‘no substance’ was found in the accusations against the CJI by a former employee.

Bobde has been also credited with the judgement where the apex court ruled that the lack of Aadhaar was not enough to deprive any Indian citizen of basic services and government subsidies.
He was also part of the five-judge constitution bench which just concluded hearing one of the most crucial cases of the country, the Babri Masjid land dispute, the verdict for which is awaited.

With eight years in the topmost judicial body of the country, Bobde, in 2017, along with Justice L. Nageswara Rao, rejected the petition of a woman who sought termination of her foetus. In another judgment in 2016, he suspended the sales of firecrackers in the national capital region on grounds of air pollution.

Also Read: Understanding The Sexual Harassment Case Against CJI – What If The Accused Was A CEO Instead?