Justice SA Bobde, Part Of Many Landmark Verdicts, Takes Oath As 47th Chief Justice of India

Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde took oath as the 47th Chief Justice of India on Monday. Justice Bobde (63) succeeds Justice Ranjan Gogoi who demitted office on Sunday. President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath of office of Chief Justice of India to Justice Bobde at around 9.30 AM. Justice Bobde will serve as CJI for around 18 months. Justice Bobde took oath in English in the name of God at a brief ceremony held at the Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhawan. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several senior ministers were present at the oath-taking ceremony. Former vice president Hamid Ansari and former prime minister Manmohan Singh were also present.

Justice Bobde had said that he would prefer a conservative approach on the issue of disclosing the Collegium's entire deliberations on rejection of names for appointment in the higher judiciary.

'Goal To Deliver Justice To Last Person' 

Ahead of his swearing-in ceremony, Chief Justice of India-designate Sharad Bobde told TOI that his main aim will be to deliver justice to the last person. Justice Bobde said priorities might change depending on the circumstances, but at no point in time should they deviate from the main goal of delivering justice.

In another interview to PTI after being appointed as the CJI last month, he had said that people's reputation cannot be sacrificed just to satisfy the desire of citizens to know. On the issue of huge vacancies of judges in courts across the country and lack of judicial infrastructure, Justice Bobde had said that he wishes to take to the "logical end" the steps taken by his predecessor CJI Gogoi.

Justice Bobde has decided on many key issues and has been part of many historic judgments:

• Justice Bobde was also a part of the five-judge bench which heard the Ayodhya land dispute case. 
• A nine-judge bench of the apex court headed by the then CJI J S Khehar and which included Justice Bobde had held unanimously in August 2017 that the Right to Privacy was a constitutionally protected fundamental right in India.
• Justice Bobde was part of the three-judge bench which in 2015 clarified that no citizen of India without an Aadhaar card can be denied basic services and government services.
• Justice Bobde also headed a three-member in-house committee which gave a clean chit to CJI Gogoi on a sexual harassment complaint against him by a former apex court staffer. The committee also included Justices Indira Banerjee and Indu Malhotra. 
• Justice Bobde has been credited with judgment where the top court ruled that the lack of Aadhaar was not grounds to deprive any Indian citizen of basic services and government subsides.
• In 2016, he suspended the sales of firecrackers in the national capital region of Delhi on grounds of extreme air pollution.
• a two-judge bench headed by Justice Bobde directed the Committee of Administrators (CoA) headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, appointed by it for the purpose of running the BCCI administration, to demit office paving the way for elected members to run the affairs of the cricket board.

Born in Nagpur on April 24, 1956, Justice Bobde completed his graduation and obtained a law degree from Nagpur University. He was enrolled on the roll of the Bar Council of Maharashtra in 1978 and was designated as Senior Advocate in 1998. His career as judge began on March 29, 2000, when he was appointed as Additional Judge in the Bombay High Court, and he rose to become Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court on October 16, 2012. He was elevated as a Judge of the Supreme Court on April 12, 2023.

Justice Bobde's father Arvind Bobde was the advocate-general of Maharashtra and his elder brother late Vinod Arvind Bobde a renowned senior advocate of the Supreme Court. Bobde’s term as Chief Justice of India will end on April 23, 2021.