ON MONDAY, THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA (‘CJI’) B.R. Gavai recommended the name of Justice Surya Kant as his successor. The President of India is likely to appoint Justice Kant as the next Chief Justice of India with effect from November 24, 2025.
Justice Kant is the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court and will demit office as CJI on 9 February 2027.
CJI Gavai, this morning, sent his recommendation to the Union Law Minister. A copy of the same was handed over to Justice Kant.
The convention
Apart from the two well-known departures, namely the appointment of Justice A.N. Ray in 1973 as CJI (who superseded three senior judges who formed the majority in the landmark Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973) decision, and the appointment of Justice M.H. Beg as CJI in 1976 in supersession of Justice H.R. Khanna, who had dissented in the infamous ADM Jabalpur (1976) judgement, appointments to the office of the Chief Justice of India have, by convention, been of the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office.
As per the Second Judges case (1993), the appointment to the office of the Chief Justice of India should be of the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office. The proposal is required to be initiated by the outgoing CJI.
According to the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), a document agreed to by the Executive and the Collegium regarding the appointment and transfer of judges, the appointment to the office of the CJI should be of the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office.
Whenever there is any doubt about the fitness of the seniormost judge to hold the office, consultation with other judges, as envisaged under Article 124(2) of the Constitution, needed to be made for the appointment of the next Chief Justice of India.
Justice Kant was born on 19 February 1962 at Hisar in Haryana. He started practising law at the District Court, Hisar, in 1984. He shifted to Chandigarh in 1985 to practise in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Justice Kant has the distinction of being appointed the youngest Advocate General of Haryana on 7 July 2000.
He was designated as a Senior Advocate in March 2001. He held the office of Advocate General, Haryana, until his elevation as a permanent judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 9 January 2004. Before his elevation to the Supreme Court, Justice Kant also served as Chief Justice of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh with effect from 5 October 2018. He was appointed to the Bench of the Supreme Court on 24 May 2019. His name was recommended by a Collegium comprising the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S.A. Bobde, N.V. Ramana, Arun Mishra, and R.F. Nariman.
Justice Kant’s decisions
Justice Kant has been part of many notable decisions of the Supreme Court. He was a member of the five-judge Constitution Bench which upheld the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, thereby taking away the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
Justice Kant was also part of a seven-judge Constitution Bench and wrote a concurring opinion overruling the Azeez Basha (1976) judgment, which had held that Aligarh Muslim University was not a minority institution. The Constitution Bench laid down criteria to determine whether an institution qualifies as a minority institution. However, the decision of a three-judge Bench, on the facts of the case, regarding whether AMU is a minority institution, is still awaited.
Justice Kant was also part of a three-judge Bench that halted the operation of Section 124 (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code (‘IPC’). He was also a member of the Bench that appointed an expert committee to probe the alleged use of Pegasus spyware on activists and journalists. However, the report of the expert committee is yet to be made public.
Justice Kant was part of the Bench that granted bail to former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the excise policy corruption case. He was also on the three-judge Bench that granted bail to fact-checker Mohammed Zubair after multiple FIRs were lodged against him over his social media posts.
Justice Kant also authored an important ruling in the K.A. Najeeb (2021) case, holding that on the ground of delay in trial, a constitutional court is not denuded of its power to grant bail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, notwithstanding the rigours of the statute.
Justice Kant drew criticism when he denied relief to BJP leader Nupur Sharma, whose remarks about Prophet Muhammad had sparked widespread protests. Later, the Bench headed by Justice Kant granted her protection and ordered consolidation of the FIRs against her.
A Bench headed by Justice Kant had also put in abeyance the disqualification proceedings against 16 rebel MLAs in Maharashtra who had revolted against the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray and belonged to the Eknath Shinde camp. At the same time, the Bench refused to stay the floor test. This eventually led the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Thackeray, to resign ahead of the floor test.
Justice Kant also granted interim bail to Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, who was arrested over a Facebook post regarding Operation Sindoor. However, the Bench headed by Justice Kant formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe his social media posts. The Bench also restrained the professor from expressing any opinion on Operation Sindoor.
Justice Kant also heard an appeal by Madhya Pradesh Minister Kunwar Vijay Shah against a Madhya Pradesh High Court order directing registration of an FIR against him over his derogatory remarks against Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who had briefed the media during Operation Sindoor. Justice Kant, while deprecating the minister’s remarks, eventually protected him from arrest. The Bench headed by him also formed an SIT to investigate the FIR.
Justice Kant has been hearing the challenge to the Election Commission of India’s decision to hold a Special Intensive Revision in Bihar and has been passing interim orders in the matter.