November 24, 2025 : Justice Surya Kant was sworn in on Monday as the 53rd Chief Justice of India, succeeding Justice BR Gavai, who retired on Sunday evening.
Over his tenure in the Supreme Court, Justice Kant has been associated with a series of significant constitutional rulings, including those on the abrogation of Article 370, the revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls and the Pegasus spyware case.
Who is Justice Surya Kant?
Born on February 10, 1962, in Haryana’s Hisar district to a middle class family, Justice Kant went from practising as a small town lawyer to reaching the country’s highest judicial post.
He completed his Master’s degree in law from Kurukshetra University in 2011, securing “first class first”, as mentioned in an earlier HT report.
Justice Kant earlier served as chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court from October 5, 2018. Before that, he wrote several notable judgments in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
He will serve for 15 months before leaving office on February 9, 2027, when he turns 65.
Notably, Justice Kant had urged the Election Commission to provide details of the 65 lakh voters left out of the draft electoral rolls in Bihar while hearing a set of petitions that questioned the poll panel’s decision to carry out the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters list in the state.
New CJI’s top priorities
A few days before, Justice Kant said that his top priorities would be dealing with pending cases in the judiciary and encouraging mediation as the alternative way of dispute resolution.
“My first and foremost challenge is arrears of cases. Today’s scoreboard shows that the Supreme Court arrears crossed 90,000. I am not going into how it happened, who is responsible… maybe listing (of cases) has gone up,” he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
He added, “Now the second issue is mediation. This is one of the easiest ways of dispute (re)solution and it can really be the game changer.”
Summary:
Justice Surya Kant was sworn in as India’s 53rd Chief Justice, marking a major judicial transition and setting expectations for reforms and significant upcoming court decisions.