Chief Justice of India

The Chief Justice of The Republic of India is the head of the judicial branch of the government of India and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of India as well as the highest-ranking officer of the Indian federal judiciary. The Constitution of India grants plenary power to the President of India to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the Parliament of India, appoint a chief justice, who serves until they reach the age of sixty five, resign, retire, are impeached and convicted, or die.

As head of the supreme court, the chief justice is responsible for the allocation of cases and appointment of constitutional benches which deal with important matters of law.[4] In accordance with Article 145 of the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court Rules of Procedure of 1966, the chief justice allocates all work to the other judges who are bound to refer the matter back to him or her (for re-allocation) in any case where they require it to be looked into by a larger bench of more judges.

On the administrative side, the chief justice carries out the following functions: maintenance of the roster; appointment of court officials and general and miscellaneous matters relating to the supervision and functioning of the Supreme Court.

However this convention has been broken twice. In 1973, Justice A. N. Ray was appointed superseding 3 senior judges. Also, in 1977 Justice Mirza Hameedullah Beg was appointed as the CJI superseding Justice Hans Raj Khanna.

➨ The present CJI is Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, and is the 47th CJI since 26 January 1950, the year the Constitution came into effect and the supreme court came into being. He succeeded Justice Ranjan Gogoi on 18 November 2019, and will remain in office till 23 April 2021, the day he retires on turning 65 years of age, for 18 months.

➨ Appointment

Chief Justice of India is appointed by the President of India on the basis of nomination by other judges of supreme court.

➨ Removal

Article 124(4) of Constitution of India lays down the procedure for removal of a judge of Supreme Court which is applicable to chief justices as well. Once appointed, the chief justice remains in the office until the age of 65 years. He can be removed only through a process of removal by Parliament as follows:

A Judge of the Supreme Court shall not be removed from his office except by an order of the President passed after an address by each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present and voting has been presented to the President in the same session for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.