Four new judges were sworn in on May 24 at the Supreme Court, two of whom will go on to be the Chief Justices of India in the line of seniority. Justice B.R. Gavai will become the CJI for over six months in 2025. He will be the second Chief Justice of India from the Scheduled Caste community after Justice (retd) K.G. Balakrishnan. Justice Surya Kant will succeed Justice Gavai as the CJI in November 2025. He will remain in office till February 2027. The two other judges sworn in on May 24 are Jharkhand High Court and Gauhati High Court Chief Justices Aniruddha Bose and A.S. Bopanna. On May 8, the Collegium led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had refused the government's request to reconsider the elevation of these two judges to the apex court. The Collegium's reiteration had made it binding on the government to clear their appointments. With these four new appointments, the Supreme Court will function with its full sanctioned judicial strength of 31 judges. Justice Gavai has superseded three judges in the Bombay High Court. But the Collegium had reasoned that though seniority ought to be given due weightage, merit is the “predominant consideration”. Representation for the SC/ST category seems to have played in the mind of the Collegium while recommending Justice Gavai’s elevation. Justice Kant had been the subject of controversy over a letter written by Justice (now retired) A.K. Goel to then chief justice of India Dipak Misra. Justice Goel, then an apex court judge, had disagreed with a proposal to elevate Justice Kant as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. However, the Misra Collegium, in a notification dated October 3, 2018, went ahead with Justice Kant’s elevation.
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