Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud – New Chief Justice of India

President Droupadi Murmu has appointed Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud as the Chief Justice of India effective from November 9.

Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud

Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud earned his LLB from Delhi University. After earning the coveted Inlaks Scholarship, he went on to study at Harvard University. He earned his Masters in Law (LLM) and Doctorate in Juridical Sciences at Harvard (SJD).

His father Justice Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud was the 16th Chief Justice of India, serving from February 22, 1978, till July 11, 1985. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of India on August 28, 1972. He was the longest-serving Chief Justice in India’s history, having served for 7 years and 4 months.

Before becoming a judge of the Bombay High Court, Chandrachud worked as a lawyer in the Supreme Court and the High Courts of Gujarat, Calcutta, Allahabad, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi. He testified before the Company Law Board, the Monopolies and Restricted Trade Practices Commission, the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) Board, and several national and state commissions.

In 1998, the Bombay High Court appointed him as Senior Advocate. From 1998 to 2000, he was India’s Additional Solicitor General. Justice Chandrachud’s most notable cases as an advocate have addressed constitutional and administrative law, the rights of HIV+ employees, religious and linguistic minority rights, and labour and industrial regulations.

He was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court on March 29, 2000. On October 31, 2013, he took his oath as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. On May 13, 2016, he was appointed as a Judge to the Supreme Court of India.

Read about CJI appointment in detail