Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India (CJI) Justice BR Gavai has forwarded the name of Justice Surya Kant as his successor to the Law Ministry in a formal letter. Justice Surya Kant, currently the most senior judge of the Supreme Court, will take over upon Justice Gavai’s retirement on November 23. He will be sworn in as the 53rd Chief Justice of India on November 24. His tenure will be approximately 14 months and he will retire on February 9, 2027.
Justice Surya Kant will be the first from Haryana to occupy the top judicial post. Justice Surya Kant became Haryana’s youngest Advocate General on July 7, 2000. He was designated as a Senior Advocate in March 2001. On January 9, 2004, he was appointed a permanent judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
He assumed office as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court on October 5, 2018, and was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on May 24, 2019. He is also the Chairman of the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, effective November 12, 2024. Born on February 10, 1962, in a middle-class family in Haryana, Justice Kant graduated from Government Post Graduate College, Hisar, in 1981, and obtained his law degree in 1984 from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak.
He began his legal practice at the District Court in Hisar in 1984 and later shifted to Chandigarh in 1985 to practice at the Punjab and Haryana High Court, according to Justice Kant’s profile on the Supreme Court’s official website.
