Justice Sanjiv Khanna

Justice Khanna will have a relatively short tenure of just six months — he is due to retire on March 13, 2025.

A graduate of Delhi University’s Campus Law Centre, he enrolled as an advocate in 1983 and primarily practised before the Delhi High Court. Before his elevation as judge of Delhi High Court in June 2005, he served as Senior Standing Counsel of the Income Tax Department and was also the standing counsel on civil matters for the Delhi government.

Justice Khanna carries an illustrious surname in the legal circles – his father Dev Raj Khanna was a judge of the Delhi High Court and his uncle Hans Raj Khanna was the most senior of the Supreme Court puisne judges who resigned after he was passed over for chief justiceship during the Emergency.

In the last few months, Justice Khanna has in fact been in the same courtroom as his uncle – Courtroom Number 2, where a life-size portrait of the senior Justice Khanna hangs.

Known to be a very reserved and private person, Justice Khanna has spent his nearly two-decade long judicial career in Delhi. In fact, the Chief Justiceship will be his first big administrative role as a judge. He is currently the Executive Chairman of the National Legal Services Authority.

Justice Khanna was elevated to the Supreme Court in January 2019. Despite not having served as Chief Justice of a High Court, he was elevated over other senior judges in the Delhi High Court. The Supreme Court Collegium had in fact picked Justices Rajendra Menon and Pradeep Nandrajog for appointment to the Supreme Court. However, those two names were not sent to the government and subsequently, Justice Khanna was elevated from the Delhi High Court.

In his nearly six-year tenure as Supreme Court judge, Justice Khanna has authored several key rulings. He was part of the five-judge Constitution Bench that in February this year struck down the Electoral Bond Scheme as unconstitutional, and in 2023 was part of the bench that upheld the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. In 2023, Justice Khanna authored a key Constitutional Bench ruling that held that the Supreme Court has the power to directly grant divorce under Article 142 of the Constitution on the grounds of “irretrievable breakdown of marriage”