Chief Justice of India UU Lalit has named Justice DY Chandrachud as his successor in the presence of all the judges in the Supreme Court. The CJI handed over the letter of recommendation to the Union government as is the convention. In addition to considering the CJI’s recommendation, the President of India will be advised by the Prime Minister before he names the next CJI.
Justice Chandrachud is the senior-most judge in line after the incumbent CJI. His appointment hence follows the convention of seniority.
The appointment of the CJI is ruled not by laws laid out in the Constitution but by the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) agreed upon by the government and the judiciary. The MoP, that lays down criteria for appointment of judges to the SC, evolved out of the decisions made by the SC in the three Judges Cases of 1981, 1993 and 1998. The MoP recommends the appointment of the senior-most judge of the SC “considered fit to hold the office” as the CJI.
Justice Lalit could have also named someone lower in the seniority list to succeed him. The first time a senior Judge was superseded during CJI appointment was in 1964, during Jawaharlal Nehru’s Prime Ministership. Justice Imam was superseded by Justice Gajendragadkar on account of the former’s ill health.
The most infamous supersession (when the senior most judge or judges have been superseded) of judges in the appointment of the CJI was in 1973. The then Indira Gandhi government appointed Justice AN Ray, superseding three others – Justices KS Hegde, JM Shelat and AN Grover. The appointment, which took place on April 26, 1973, came two days after the SC decided the Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala case. The Kesavananda judgement was a landmark one that laid down the ‘basic structure doctrine’ stating that any amendment made to the Constitution by the Parliament should not alter its basic structure or fundamental features. The senior-most Justices Hegde, Shehat and Grover had ruled against the government. Justice Ray was among those who penned a dissenting judgement, and was hence perceived as being friendly towards the government.
Four years later in 1977, Indira Gandhi appointed Justice MH Beg as CJI, superseding Justice HR Khanna. The latter had displeased the Prime Minister with his lone dissenting voice in the decision of ADM Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla. The judgement had allowed that the rights of the citizens, including their right to approach the Courts, stood suspended during an Emergency. As many suspected that Justice Khanna would be superseded, the Supreme Court Bar Association had, in an emergency meeting held a few days before it, passed a resolution that “appointment to the office of the Chief Justice of India should not depend on the executive” and that the seniority principle be followed in order to avoid executive interference.