Justice Khehar to be next Chief Justice of India

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, December 6

Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar is set to be appointed as the 44th Chief Justice of India (CJI) to succeed CJI TS Thakur, who retires on January 4.

Justice Thakur today recommended to the Centre the elevation of Justice Khehar as the next CJI, official sources said. Under the existing practice, the incumbent CJI recommends the appointment of his successor.

Justice Khehar assumed office as an apex court judge on September 13, 2011. He would be sworn in as the CJI on January 4 by President Pranab Mukherjee. He would head the Indian judiciary for a little less than eight months before retiring on August 27.

Justice JS Khehar has headed two Constitution Benches of the apex court, one that revived the Collegium system of appointing higher judiciary judges and the other that restored the Congress government headed by Chief Minister Nabam Tuki in Arunachal Pradesh.

He was associated with the impeachment proceedings of apex court Justice V Ramaswami and Karnataka HC Chief Justice PD Dinakaran. He appeared as counsel to defend Justice Ramaswami, who survived the impeachment proceedings in the Lok Sabha in the 1990s, before the Judges Inquiry Committee headed by Justice PB Sawant of the apex court. As an apex court judge, he was part of the judges’ inquiry panel that had gone into complaints of misconduct against Justice Dinakaran.

Born on August 28, 1952, he graduated in science from Government College, Chandigarh, in 1974 and got the LLB degree from Panjab University in 1977. He completed LLM from PU in 1979, getting the gold medal.

He was appointed a Judge of the Punjab and Haryana HC in 1999, and its Acting Chief Justice twice. He was elevated as the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand HC on November 29, 2009, and was transferred as the Chief Justice of Karnataka HC in 2010.