Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, Apr 29: Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, senior judge of the Supreme Court, has been appointed as the next Chief Justice of India (CJI). He will take charge on May 14, following the retirement of incumbent CJI Sanjiv Khanna on May 13.
The Union Ministry of Law and Justice issued the formal notification on Tuesday. “In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, the President is pleased to appoint Shri Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the Chief Justice of India with effect from May 14, 2025,” it stated.
Justice Gavai will be the 52nd CJI and is expected to serve for a little over six months, demitting office on November 23, 2025.
He was elevated to the Supreme Court on May 29, 2019. Earlier, he served as a judge of the Bombay High Court, first as an additional judge from November 2003 and later as a permanent judge from November 2005.
Before his elevation to the bench, Justice Gavai practised constitutional and administrative law and represented various civic bodies and institutions, including the Municipal Corporations of Nagpur and Amravati, and Amravati University. He also held the positions of Assistant Government Pleader and Additional Public Prosecutor at the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court, and later served as Government Pleader and Public Prosecutor in 2000.
In the Supreme Court, Justice Gavai has served on several significant benches, including the recent 7-judge Constitution Bench examining whether sub-classification within reserved categories for more targeted affirmative action is permissible under the Constitution.
In a notable opinion during those proceedings, he advocated applying the ‘creamy layer’ principle to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, questioning whether children of high-ranking officers from these communities should continue to receive reservation benefits on par with children from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds.
He observed, “When the 9-Judge Bench in Indra Sawhney held that the creamy layer test for OBCs would promote equality, then why shouldn’t the same principle apply to SCs and STs?” He further noted that treating children of top officials and those of rural manual labourers within the same category undermines the true intent of reservation.