At last, senior Supreme Court judge N V Ramana has been appointed as the next Chief Justice of India in place of S A Bobde, who would be retiring on attaining age of superannuation on April 23.
President of India Ramnath Kovind issued orders on Tuesday, appointing Justice Ramana as the 48th Chief Justice of India and Union law ministry issued a statement to this effect.
The outgoing CJI recommended Justice Ramana’s name as his successor and the Union law ministry accepted the same and sent it to the President’s approval. Justice Ramana would have a term till August 26, 2022.
Before his elevation to the Supreme Court on February 17, 2014, Justice Ramana was the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.
He is the second Telugu man to become the CJI. Earlier, Justice Koka Subba Rao from Rajamahendravaram served as the Chief Justice of India.
Justice Subba Rao was the ninth Chief Justice of India from 1966-1967. Justice Subba Rao also served as the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
Ramana, who hails from Ponnavaram village in Krishna district enrolled as an Advocate on February 10, 1983 and practiced in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Central and Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunals and the Supreme Court of India.
He also functioned as Additional Advocate General of Andhra Pradesh. He was appointed as a permanent Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on June 27, 2000. He functioned as Acting Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court from March 10, 2013 to May 20, 2013.
Two weeks back, the Supreme Court dismissed a complaint made by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy alleging that Justice Ramana was interfering with the State Judiciary in politically sensitive cases. After a confidential in-house enquiry, the Supreme Court dismissed the Andhra CM's complaint as meritless.
There was a talk that the Central government might deny the opportunity to Justice Ramana under pressure from Jagan Mohan Reddy, but it turned out to be hoax talk, as the Centre cleared Raman’s appointment as CJI without any issues.
