CJI Sanjiv Khanna Successor: Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna Wednesday wrote to the Union Law Ministry, naming Justice B R Gavai, the second-most senior judge of the Supreme Court, as his successor. Once approved by the government, Justice Gavai will become the 52nd Chief Justice of India. Elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on May 24, 2019, Justice Gavai, 64, will take over as CJI after the retirement of the current CJI Khanna, and remain in office till November 23, 2025. Justice Khanna will retire on May 13, 2025. The retirement age of Supreme Court judges is 65 years. Hailing from Amravati in Maharashtra, Justice Gavai joined the Bar on March 16, 1985, and worked with Raja S Bhonsale, former Advocate General and judge of the Bombay High Court, till 1987. After 1990, he practised mainly before the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court in Constitutional and Administrative Law. He was also Standing Counsel for Municipal Corporation of Nagpur, Amravati Municipal Corporation, and Amravati University. Justice Gavai was appointed as Assistant Government Pleader and Additional Public Prosecutor in the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court from August 1992 to July 1993, and as Government Pleader and Public Prosecutor from January 17, 2000. He was elevated as Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court on November 14, 2003, and became a permanent Judge of the High Court on November 12, 2005. As a judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Gavai has been a part of several landmark rulings. He was part of the SC majority verdict of January 2023, which upheld the Centre’s 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. In his opinion concurring with the August 1, 2024, judgement allowing sub-categorisation of scheduled castes, Justice Gavai advocated extending the creamy layer principle to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) to achieve “real equality”. He said, “The State must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer even from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so as to exclude them from the benefit of affirmative action. In my view, only this and this alone can achieve the real equality as enshrined under the Constitution”. A five-judge Constitution Bench comprising him upheld the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and also struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme. In November 2024, a two-judge bench presided by Justice Gavai criticised the use of bulldozers against properties of crime accused, and ruled that demolition of properties of citizens without following due process is contrary to the rule of law.
