President appoints Justice Ranjan Gogoi as next Chief Justice of India

President of India Ram Nath Kovind has appointed Justice Ranjan Gogoi as next Chief Justice of India as per Article 124 of the Constitution. He will assume office of Chief Justice on 3rd October, 2018 after retirement of incumbent Chief Justice, Justice Dipak Misra.
At present Justice Gogoi is senior-most judge of Supreme Court. His appointment was as per convention, where outgoing CJI recommends name of senior-most judge for appointment by President as his successor. He will be become 46th Chief Justice of India and shall He will have tenure of about 13 months from October 3, 2018 till his retirement on November 17, 2019.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi

Justice Gogoi was born on November 18, 1954. He is native of Assam and is son of former Assam Chief Minister Keshab Chandra Gogoi. He had joined Bar in 1978 and practiced mainly in Gauhati High Court mainly on constitutional, taxation and company matters.
He was appointed as permanent judge of High Court in February 2001. He was transferred to Punjab and Haryana High Court in September 2010 and was appointed its Chief Justice in February 2011. He was elevated to the Supreme Court in April 2012.
In Supreme Court, Justice Gogoi had led important benches that have dealt largely with issue of corruption in politics and public life. He has led apex court bench which ordered Centre to set up special courts to exclusively try MPs and MLAs as means to de-criminalise politics. His Bench is also monitoring progress made by government in appointment of anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal.
Justice Gogoi was one of the four most senior Supreme Court judges (along with Justices J Chelameswar, M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph) who held January 12, 2018 press conference bringing up issue of selective assignment of sensitive cases by recent CJIs to certain judges in the Supreme Court.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2018