NEW DELHI: Following tradition, Chief Justice of India J S Khehar has recommended the name of the seniormost
Supreme Court judge, Justice
Dipak Misra, as his successor. Justice Khehar retires on August 27.
The
CJI
’s recommendation comes in response to Union law minister
Ravi Shankar Prasad’s letter seeking the incumbent CJI’s view on his successor.
Justice Misra will be the 45th Chief Justice of India and will have tenure of more than a year, retiring on October 2, 2018. He will be the third person from Odisha to become CJI after Justice Ranganath Misra (1990-91) and Justice G B Pattanaik (2002).
Justice Misra has delivered several important judgments, including the one to uphold death sentence to Mumbai serial blasts convict
Yakub Memon
after extending a midnight hearing in the court following an urgent petition by the condemned prisoner challenging rejection of mercy petition by the President.
He also headed a bench that upheld the constitutional validity of Section 499 and 500 of IPC providing for criminal defamation proceedings.
Recently, he headed a bench that upheld death penalty to those convicted in the
Nirbhaya
gang rape case. As chairman of
National Legal Services Authority
, he has introduced several measures to provide legal aid to poor litigants.
Recently, he introduced video conferencing at state legal services authorities to connect them to jails to provide free advocates to poor prisoners languishing in jail. The SC at present has 27 judges. With with Khehar’s retirement, it would have five vacancies. Justice P C Pant retires two days after Khehar.