'Will leave court with full sense of satisfaction': Outgoing CJI B R Gavai gets emotional on last working day

New Delhi: Outgoing Chief Justice of India B R Gavai on Friday said that he was leaving the institution “with a full sense of satisfaction and contentment” and as a “student of justice” on conclusion of his journey as a lawyer and a judge that spanned nearly four decades. 

"When I leave this courtroom for the last time, I leave this court all with full sense of satisfaction, the full sense of contentment that I have done whatever which I could have done for this country…Thank you. Thank you very much," a visibly emotional Justice Gavai said in the courtroom packed with law officers, senior advocates, and young lawyers.

On the last working day on Friday, the CJI, choked with emotions, said, he always believed that everybody, every judge, every lawyer, is governed by the principles on which our Constitution works that is equality, justice, liberty, and fraternity and he tried to discharge my duties within the four corners of the Constitution.

Justice Gavai, who is to superannuate on November 23, pronounced some landmark verdicts, including that of the recent one that courts can not fix timeline for Governor and President to asset bills passed by the state Assemblies and many more.

He was part of the Constitution Bench that upheld the abrogation of Article 370 and struck down the electoral bonds scheme. 

He was part of the three-judge bench which stayed Rahul Gandhi’s criminal defamation conviction. In 2024, he was on the division bench which granted bail to former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia after 17 months of incarceration.

Justice Gavai, the second Dalit Chief Justice of India after Justice K G Balakrishnan and the first Buddhist to hold the top judicial post, narrating about his journey, said that he recalled starting his legal career in 1985 and evolving through various stages to eventually lead the apex court.

"When I joined the (legal) profession in 1985, I entered the school of law. Today, as I demit the office, I do so as a student of justice," he stated. 

He was presiding over the ceremonial bench, comprising CJI-designate Surya Kant and Justice K Vinod Chandran.