President Pratibha Patil has appointed senior-most judge of the Supreme Court Justice Sarosh Homi Kapadia the 38th Chief Justice of India (CJI). He will take charge on May 12, succeeding Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, who retires on May 11.
Justice Kapadia, who will be the first CJI born after Independence, will have a tenure of 2 years and 4 months.
He was initially appointed an additional judge of the Bombay High Court in October 1991 and made a permanent judge in March 1993. For more than three years, he was the special judge of the special court under the Securities Transaction Act.
On August 5, 2003, he was appointed the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court. On December 18, 2003, he was elevated to the Supreme Court.
In the past six-and-half years, he has delivered several landmark judgments under the constitutional law and the taxation, regulatory and commercial laws. He has also dealt with public interest litigation petitions on important matters, cases under the Company Law, and matters of valuations and accounts and revival of companies under the SICA, 1985.
