CJI Gavai recommends appointment of Justice Surya Kant as next CJI
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New Delhi (PTI): Chief Justice of India Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai has recommended to the Centre the name of Justice Surya Kant as the next CJI.
Justice Surya Kant, the second senior-most Supreme Court judge after the incumbent CJI Gavai, is set to become the 53rd chief justice of India on November 24 after CJI Gavai's retirement on November 23.
CJI Gavai, who was sworn in on May 14 this year, recommended to the Union law ministry to appoint Justice Surya Kant as the next CJI, sources said.
Justice Surya Kant, who was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on May 24, 2019, would have a tenure of over 1.2 years as the CJI. He is due to retire on February 9, 2027.
The retirement age of Supreme Court judges is 65 years.
According to the memorandum of procedure, a set of documents, which guide the appointment, transfer and elevation of Supreme Court and high court judges, states that appointment to the office of the chief justice of India should be the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office.
The Union law minister would, "at the appropriate time", seek the recommendation of the outgoing CJI for the appointment of his successor.
Conventionally, the letter is sent a month before the incumbent CJI retires on attaining the age of 65 years.
Justice Surya Kant, born in a middle-class family on February 10, 1962, in Hisar district of Haryana, became a top court judge on May 24, 2019.
Justice Surya Kant brings to the country's top judicial office a wealth of experience spanning two decades on the bench, marked by landmark verdicts on abrogation of Article 370, free speech, democracy, corruption, environment and gender equality.
Justice Surya Kant was part of the bench that kept the colonial-era sedition law in abeyance, directing that no new FIRs be registered under it until a government review.
In an order that underlined transparency in the poll process, he nudged the Election Commission to disclose the details of 65 lakh names excluded from the draft electoral rolls after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar.
Justice Surya Kant is also credited with directing that one-third of seats in bar associations, including the Supreme Court Bar Association, be reserved for women.
He upheld the One Rank-One Pension (OROP) scheme for defence forces, calling it constitutionally valid, and continues to hear petitions of women officers in the armed forces seeking parity in permanent commission.
Justice Surya Kant was on the seven-judge bench that overruled the 1967 Aligarh Muslim University judgment, opening the way for reconsideration of the institution's minority status.
He was part of the bench that heard the Pegasus spyware case, which appointed a panel of cyber experts to probe allegations of unlawful surveillance, famously stating that the state cannot get a "free pass under the guise of national security."
Justice Surya Kant was part of the bench that appointed a five-member committee headed by former Supreme Court Justice Indu Malhotra to probe the security breach during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2022 Punjab visit, saying such matters required "a judicially trained mind."
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SC refuses plea against Andhra Pradesh govt panel reviewing SIT report on Tirumala laddu row
New Delhi (PTI): In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to restrain a one-member committee appointed by the Andhra Pradesh government from reviewing an independent Special Investigation Team's (SIT) report on the Tirumala laddu controversy.
The top court, on October 4, 2024, had set up the five-member independent SIT to probe the allegations of animal fat used in preparing Tirupati laddus to "assuage the feelings of crores of people", while making clear that the court cannot be used as a "political battleground".
On Monday, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymala Bagchi was told by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy that the state government's decision to appoint the one-member committee amounts to setting up a parallel inquiry that would affect the SIT's probe. The plea also assailed statements made by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on the row.
Rejecting the submissions, the CJI noted that the SIT probe is already over and the matter is sub-judice as two chargesheets, including a supplementary one, have been submitted in the court.
"Such an administrative enquiry cannot be called as overlapping with the criminal proceedings which led to the chargesheet and the supplementary chargesheet," the CJI said.
"There is no conflict of interest/overlapping, and the scope of the investigation/enquiry, having been well demarcated, shows that apprehension of the petitioner does not have a solid foundation. Let both processes continue strictly in accordance with the law," the court said.
Swamy argued that the state government's move undermines the authority of the SIT, constituted earlier by the Supreme Court itself to probe irregularities surrounding the laddus distributed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD).
During the proceedings, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the SIT has completed its investigation and filed its final report.
He underlined that according to the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) manual, if administrative lapses not connected to a criminal matter are found during a probe, then those have to be intimated to the state government, and as the SIT has found certain administrative lapses, the Andhra Pradesh government's panel is looking into those.
The panel replaced the state government's SIT, constituted on September 26, 2024, following the politically-sensitive row over the alleged use of animal fat in the laddus.
The controversy erupted after Naidu's claim that animal fat was used in preparing Tirupati laddus during the previous Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy-led regime in the southern state.
The YSR Congress Party has accused Naidu of levelling "heinous allegations" against it for political gains, while the ruling Telugu Desam Party in the state has circulated a laboratory report to back its claim.
A batch of pleas, including those seeking a court-monitored probe into the alleged use of animal fat in making the laddus, was then filed in the apex court.
