Justice Sanjiv Khanna was on Monday sworn in as the Chief Justice of India. He was administered the oath of office by President Droupadi Murmu.

Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna is the 51st Chief Justice of India. He will have a tenure of six months and three days. He will demit office on May 13, 2025.

Chief Justice Khanna has succeeded Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who retired on November 10.

Chief Justice Khanna was elevated as judge of the Supreme Court on January 18, 2019.

The swearing-in-ceremony was attended amongst others by the Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, other members of the Union Cabinet and other dignitaries.

Born on May 14, 1960, Justice Sanjiv Khanna enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Delhi in 1983. Initially he practiced in the District Court at Tis Hazari complex in the national capital. Later he moved on to Delhi High Court and also practiced at different tribunals.

Justice Khanna’s field of specialization covered constitutional law, direct taxation, arbitration, commercial law, company law, land law, environmental law and the taxation, arbitration, commercial law, company law, land law, environmental law and medical negligence.

He had a long tenure as the Senior Standing Counsel for the Income Tax Department. In 2004, he was appointed as the Standing Counsel (Civil) for the National Capital Territory of Delhi. He had also appeared and argued in a number of criminal cases at the Delhi High Court as an Additional Public Prosecutor and as an amicus curiae.

Elevated as an additional judge of the Delhi High Court in 2005 and he was made a permanent judge in 2006. As a judge of Delhi High Court, he was Chairman/Judge-in-charge of Delhi Judicial Academy, Delhi International Arbitration Centre, and the District Court Mediation Centre.

As a Supreme Court judge he was Chairman, Supreme Court Legal Service Committee, from June 17, 2023 till December 25, 2023.

He is presently the Executive Chairman of the National Legal Services Authority and a member of the Governing Council of the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal.

Now as CJI, Justice Khanna will be the patron-in-Chief of NALSA.

Justice Khanna was part of the bench that took suo motu cognizance of media reports on the allegations of sexual harassment against then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi in April 2019. In 2019, he authored the lead judgment for the Constitution bench, ruling that the Right to Information (RTI) Act extends to the office of the Chief Justice of India.

In Amish Devgan vs. Union of India, Chief Justice Khanna stressed the necessity of regulating hate speech to maintain social harmony.

In 2021, Chief Justice Khanna dissented from the majority opinion and ruled against the process for changing the land use for the Central Vista Project.

He also authored the judgment for the Constitution Bench, stating that “irretrievable breakdown” of marriage can be a ground for the Supreme Court to take recourse to its plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to dissolve such a marriage.

Chief Justice Khanna heard several politically sensitive cases, including petitions by Aam Aadmi Party leaders including former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and his then deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who are accused of alleged wrongdoings in Delhi Excise Policy case. In May, he granted interim bail to Kejriwal to allow him to campaign during Lok Sabha elections, and later, in July and referred the matter to a larger bench to consider the need for further grounds for arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to prevent potential abuses of the law.

Justice Khanna headed the bench that had on April 26, 2024, rejected the plea seeking 100% cross-verification of the EVM votes with VVPAT slips and had directed that after the completion of the symbol loading process in the VVPATs undertaken on or after Mat 1, 2024, the symbol loading units shall be sealed and secured in a container and the same shall be kept in the strong rooms along with the EVMs at least for 45 days after the declaration of results.

Chief Justice Khanna was also a part of the Constitution bench that had upheld the abrogation of the Article 370 that granted special status to erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir. He delivered a separate but concurring judgment in the Electoral Bond case stating how the anonymous scheme for the funding of the political parties violated constitutional rights.