On Monday, Justice Surya Kant will take the oath of office as the 53rd Chief Justice of India (CJI), beginning his 14-month term in the nation’s top court.
Justice Kant, who replaces CJI Bhushan R. Gavai, will take the oath of office from President Droupadi Murmu. In response to CJI Gavai’s proposal, the President had previously named Justice Surya Kant as the next Chief Justice of India “in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution”.
After reaching the age of 65 on Sunday, Justice Gavai resigned from the CJI’s position, upholding the custom of appointing the Supreme Court’s senior judge to succeed him.
Born in a middle-class Haryana family on February 10, 1962, Justice Surya Kant started his legal career in Hisar in 1984 before relocating to Chandigarh to practice before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
He represented academic institutions, boards, businesses, banks, and even the High Court itself in a wide range of constitutional, service, and civil cases over the years.
In July 2000, he became the youngest Advocate General of Haryana; in 2001, he was named a senior advocate; on January 9, 2004, he was made a permanent judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Later, from October 2018 till his promotion to the Supreme Court on May 24, 2019, he was Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
He has been the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee Chairman since November 2024.
The CJI-designate stated that lowering pendency in the Supreme Court and courts nationwide will be his top focus in an interview with the media on Saturday before to taking over.
He stated that interacting with all High Courts to find issues impacting the operation of district and subordinate courts would be one of his first actions as Chief Justice of India.
Additionally, he declared that “in the next few weeks” Constitution Benches consisting of five, seven, and nine judges would be established to hear significant cases that had been outstanding for a considerable amount of time.
Justice Surya Kant emphasized the importance of bolstering alternative dispute resolution procedures by stating, “Mediation will also be implemented effectively to reduce the burden of millions of cases.” He continued by saying that community mediation should be promoted, particularly in order to lessen conflicts between state governments and between the federal government and the states.
“A conducive environment must be created for this,” he stated.
Justice Surya Kant stated that there are numerous problems and difficulties when asked about the potential of using AI to lower the backlog of cases. “There are benefits, but there are also some worries. It can be applied to procedural issues. But everyone wants a court to decide their issue,” he stated.
According to official data up to July 21 accessible on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), Indian courts are overburdened with 5.29 crore pending cases. Of them, 86,742 cases are pending before the Supreme Court, 63.30 lakh in High Courts, and 4.65 crore in district and subordinate courts.
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