Chief Justice of India B R Gavai recommends Justice Surya Kant as his successor

When notified by the Centre, Justice Kant will become the 53rd Chief Justice of India and remain in the post from November 24, 2025, till February 9, 2027

New Delhi: Chief Justice of India B R Gavai on Monday recommended the name of senior-most Supreme Court judge, Justice Surya Kant, to be his successor upon his superannuation on November 23, 2025.

When notified by the Centre, Justice Kant would become the 53rd Chief Justice of India and would remain in the post from November 24, 2025, till February 9, 2027.

As per the memorandum of procedure, the Law Ministry on October 23 sent a letter to the incumbent CJI to name his successor.

Upon his appointment, Justice Kant would be the first person from Haryana to occupy the top-most post in the judiciary.

He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on May 24, 2019. 

As per the Supreme Court website, Justice Kant — born on February 10, 1962, at Hisar (Haryana) in a middle-class family — graduated from the Government Post Graduate College, Hisar, in 1981. 

He acquired his bachelor's degree in law in 1984 from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak.

He started practising law at the district court in Hisar in 1984 and shifted to Chandigarh in 1985 to practice in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Justice Kant specialises in constitutional, service and civil matters. He represented a number of universities, boards, corporations, banks and also the High Court itself.

He was appointed the youngest Advocate General of Haryana on July 7, 2000, and was designated as a Senior Advocate in March 2001. He held the office of Advocate General, Haryana, till his elevation as a permanent judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on January 9, 2004.

Justice Kant was nominated as a member of the Governing Body of the National Legal Services Authority on February 23, 2007, for two consecutive terms till February 22, 2011.

He is presently a member of various committees of the Indian Law Institute, a deemed university under the aegis of the Supreme Court. He earned another distinction of standing first class first in his master's degree in law in 2011 from the Directorate of Distance Education, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra. He has also organised and attended various prestigious national and international conferences. 

He assumed charge of the office of the Chief Justice of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh on October 5, 2018.

Justice Kant has pronounced several verdicts and orders which are being held as landmarks. 

He was part of the bench that upheld the abrogation of Article 370 concerning Jammu and Kashmir and the bench that struck down the electoral bonds scheme, citing a violation of citizens' right to information. Justice Kant also authored the majority opinion validating Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, part of the Assam accord.

He also upheld the validity of the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme for the armed forces. Justice Kant was part of the bench that appointed an expert panel in the Pegasus spyware case, stating the state cannot use national security as a free pass for surveillance.

He has been involved in cases concerning the appointment of the Delhi Police Commissioner and the protection of public waterbodies, emphasising that they are public utilities and their takeover is illegal. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he was on a bench that directed authorities to consider releasing prisoners to alleviate overcrowding in jails.