New Delhi: Justice Ranjan Gogoi was sworn in as the 46th Chief Justice of India on Wednesday, taking over from outgoing CJI Dipak Misra, whose 13-month tenure came to a close on October 2.
Justice Ranjan Gogoi was administered the oath by President Ram Nath Kovind. He is the first judge from Assam to become the Chief Justice of India.
Justice Gogoi headed the special bench that is monitoring the updation of National Register of Citizens to identify citizens and weed out illegally settled foreigners.
His bench has been taking stock of the progress being made to appoint the Lokpal and Lokayuktas.
In one of his rulings, Justice Gogoi had put curbs on public advertisements for glorifying politicians and laid down new norms.
In Justice Karnan’s contempt case, Justice Gogoi, along with Justice (since retired) J Chelameswar, had highlighted the necessity of revisiting the existing system of appointing changes and bringing in necessary reforms to keep the public confidence intact in the judiciary.
Justice Gogoi, in another verdict, had also implored upon the government to redefine parameters of determining backwardness so that those really underprivileged and economically poor get the benefits
The Supreme Court had last week dismissed a plea challenging the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the next Chief Justice of India. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud had said the issue did not need any interference of the court and dismissed it as “without merit”.
The petition had been filed by advocate RP Luthra, who contended that a press conference held on January 12 by four senior judges of the court, including Justice Gogoi, was a virtual revolt against Chief Justice Misra.
In a farewell speech for outgoing Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Gogoi had said the outgoing CJI’s greatest contribution has been to civil liberties, and cited his recent verdicts in this regard. He said that “if we fail in endeavour to hold true to our Constitutional ideals, we will continue to kill, hate each other”, and added that the judges in the Supreme Court are all committed and they will remain committed.
“We live in times when what we should eat, wear have stopped being little things of our personal lives,” Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.
Justice Gogoi will have a tenure of a little over 13 months and would retire on November 17, 2019.
Prasanta Patnaik