50th Chief Justice of India: In November 2022, Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud is scheduled to become the 50th Chief Justice of India (CJI).

Key Points:

• Chief Justice of India (CJI) Uday Umesh Lalit, as per protocol, suggested the name of Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud as his successor for the coveted post in presence of other judges of the Supreme Court.

• He is about to complete his tenure as Chief Justice of India on November 8.
• Justice Lalit was sworn in as the 49th Chief Justice of India on August 27, 2022,

• If the center accepts the proposal, D.Y Chandrachud will become the first second-generation Chief Justice of India.

About Justice DY Chandrachud:

• Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud is a Supreme Court judge who is popularly known as the ‘judge who is not afraid to dissent.’
• He was born on 11 November 1959.
• He is the son of Justice Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud who was the 16th Chief Justice of India, serving from February 22, 1978, till July 11, 1985.
• He was appointed to the Supreme Court of India on August 28, 1972.
• He was the longest-serving Chief Justice in India's history, having served for 7 years and 4 months.
• He earned his LLB from Delhi University.
• After earning the coveted Inlaks Scholarship, he went on to study at Harvard University.
• He earned his Master’s in Law (LLM) and Doctorate in Juridical Sciences at Harvard (SJD).
• Chandrachud practised law at the Supreme Court, the High Courts of Gujarat, Calcutta, Allahabad, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi before being appointed a judge of the Bombay High Court.
• He testified before the Company Law Board, the Monopolies and Restricted Trade Practices Commission, the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) Board, and several national and state commissions.
• In 1998, the Bombay High Court appointed him as Senior Advocate.
• From 1998 to 2000, he was India's Additional Solicitor General.
• He was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court on March 29, 2000.
• On October 31, 2013, he took his oath as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court.
• On May 13, 2016, he was appointed as a Judge to the Supreme Court of India.

Notable Judgements:

• Justice Chandrachud's most notable cases as an advocate have addressed constitutional and administrative law, the rights of HIV+ employees, religious and linguistic minority rights, and labour and industrial regulations.

During his tenure -

• He sentenced Sanjay Gandhi to jail in a case concerning the film “Kissa Kursi Ka” – a political satire film that was banned during the time of National Emergency.
• In 1975, the former CJI Chandrachud was among the four in five judges who upheld the President’s order to impose emergency in the country.
• As a SC judge, DY Chandrachud had overturned two of the judgements made by his father concerning adultery and the right to privacy.
• He also overruled another landmark judgement of his father that upheld the colonial era adultery law. Justice Chandrachud struck down this law and voiced that it is a “codified rule of patriarchy”.
• In 2017, the top court involving Justice DY Chandrachud and other judges overruled the 1975 ruling in the infamous Habeaus Corpus case, which allowed the suspension of the right to life during emergency.
• Other landmark judgements featuring DY Chandrachud include those on euthanasia, women entering Sabarimala, homosexuality being decriminalised, abortion rights, the Hadiya case, medical college cases, and the PIL mandating the playing of the national anthem in movie theatres.