Justice Sharad Bobde was on Tuesday appointed the next Chief Justice of India after President Ram Nath Kovind signed the warrant approving his appointment. Justice Bobde, 63, will be sworn in as the Chief Justice on November 18 and will serve the post for around 18 months, till April 2021.
A formal notification about Justice Bobde’s appointment will be issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan soon.
Present Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi on October 18 had recommended the second senior-most judge Justice Bobde as his successor. As per the Memorandum of Procedure, which governs the appointment of members of the higher judiciary, appointment to the office of the Chief Justice of India should be of the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office. The Chief Justice of India is appointed by the President under clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution.
Justice Gogoi was the 46th Chief Justice of India, who took charge on October 3, 2018 and will demit office on November 17. Justice Gogoi served as the CJI for a tenure of 13 months and 15 days.
Justice Bobde was part of the five-judge constitution bench hearing longest running Ayodhya land dispute case and in which the judgement is still awaited. He also headed the three-judge panel that conducted an inquiry into the allegations of sexual harassment against Justice Ranjan Gogoi and gave him a clean chit.
Born in Nagpur, Justice Bobde was enrolled to the Bar Council of Maharashtra in 1978. He practiced law at the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court with appearances at Bombay and before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India for over 21 years. He was designated as a senior advocate in 1998. He was elevated to the bench of the Bombay High Court on 29th March, 2000, as an additional judge. Justice Bobde has served as the former Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court, from October 16, 2012 to April 12, 2013. In April 2013, he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court.
He is also the Chancellor of the Maharashtra National Law University in Mumbai and Nagpur. He is due to retire on 23 April 2021.
(With IANS inputs)