Article 370, rape, demonetisation, bulldozer justice: CJI Justice Gavai has delivered many a landmark verdict
Public Lokpal
May 14, 2025
Article 370, rape, demonetisation, bulldozer justice: CJI Justice Gavai has delivered many a landmark verdict
NEW DELHI: Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, India's 52nd chief justice and its first Buddhist one, has played a key role in shaping the judicial landscape, penning about 300 verdicts, including landmark rulings on constitutional issues, liberty, and perhaps most importantly against the executive's "bulldozer justice."
Justice Gavai, the second Dalit after K G Balakrishnan to head the Indian judiciary, was sworn in by President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday for a six-month tenure ending November 23, 2025.
Rising from humble beginnings to the highest judicial office of the land, Justice Gavai belongs to a village in Maharashtra's Amravati district.
Born on November 24, 1960, the Amaravati born is the son of R S Gavai, a career politician, who started the Republican Party of India (Gavai).
As the CJI, Justice Gavai will have to deal with issues such as the huge pendency of cases, including over 81,000 cases in the Supreme Court, to vacancies in courts.
On the judicial side, he will deal with the contentious issue related to the challenge to the validity of much debated Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025.
Days before being sworn in as the CJI, Justice Gavai told journalists in an informal chat with journalists at his residence here that the Constitution is supreme.
He also made it clear he would not take any post-retirement assignments.
Elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on May 24, 2019, Justice Gavai was part of constitution benches that delivered path-breaking verdicts, including on Article 370, electoral bonds and demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.
It was a bench headed by Justice Gavai that stayed the Allahabad High Court's observations on grabbing a woman's breasts and pulling the drawstrings of her "pyjama" not amounting to attempt to rape, and said it reflected total "insensitivity" and "inhuman approach."
During his tenure as an apex court judge in the last six years, Justice Gavai was part of around 700 benches dealing with matters pertaining to a range of subjects, including constitutional and administrative law, civil and criminal law, commercial disputes, arbitration law and environmental law.
He authored about 300 judgments, including constitution bench verdicts on various issues upholding the rule of law and safeguarding fundamental, human and legal rights of the citizens
PTI