President appoints Justice NV Ramana 48th Chief Justice of India; to assume charge on 24 April

President Ram Nath Kovind has appointed Justice NV Ramana as the next Chief Justice of India. In a notification dated 6 April, Barun Mitra, Secretary to the Union government, said, “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 Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana, Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the Chief Justice of India with effect from 24 April, 2021.”

The Notification appointing Justice NV Ramana as the 48th Chief Justice of India.#SupremeCourt #JusticeNVRamana https://t.co/FaECplxHOx pic.twitter.com/5PKldg1zlO

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) April 6, 2021

Outgoing Chief Justice of India SA Bobde had on 24 March recommended to the Law Ministry the appointment of the senior-most Supreme Court judge as his successor. Justice Ramana was appointed to the Supreme Court on 17 February, 2014 and will take over as CJI on 24 April, after incumbent Bobde retires. Justice Ramana will have a tenure of over 16 months, before retiring on 26 August, 2022, making it the longest tenure to be served by a CJI in nearly a decade. Justice SH Kapadia was the last judge to have a longer tenure, lasting from May 2010 to September 2012. He will also be the first Andhra Pradesh HC judge to serve at the top post. Born on 27 August, 1957 into an agricultural family in Andhra Pradesh’s Ponnavaram village, he enrolled as an advocate on 10 February, 1983. He has practiced in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Central and Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunals and the Supreme Court in Civil, Criminal, Constitutional, Labour, Service and Election matters. He has specialised in constitutional, criminal, service and inter-state river laws. He has also functioned as Additional Advocate General of Andhra Pradesh. Ramana was appointed as a permanent judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in June 2000. He served as Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court before being elevated to the Supreme Court. He was part of a bench that ruled that suspension of internet in Jammu and Kashmir should be reviewed immediately. He was also among the judges who held during a hearing that the Chief Justice’s office comes under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. As the seniormost SC judge, Ramana is the current chairperson of National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).