On Tuesday morning, Chief Justice NV Ramana delivered the oaths of office to nine new Supreme Court judges, three of whom are women. This is the first time nine judges have been sworn in at the same time in the history of India’s top court. To guarantee social distance and respect to Covid rules, the ceremony was held in the court complex’s auditorium building; usually, it is administered in the chief justice’s court chamber.
Former Karnataka High Court Judge Justice BV Nagarathna was also sworn in. Justice Nagarathna, the daughter of former Chief Justice ES Venkataramiah, will become India’s first female chief justice in 2027. She will, however, most likely be there for a month.
Justice Vikram Nath, then Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, issued an interim ruling two weeks ago saying that six parts of state legislation intended to prevent “love jihad,” including one that lays the burden of evidence on the accused, could not be allowed to remain. When he was a Bombay High Court judge in 2014, Justice Oka declared that “freedom of religion includes the right of an individual to assert he is an atheist.” This was in response to a request that the government refrain from requiring individuals to declare their religious beliefs.
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When she served on the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Justice Maheshwari remarked, “Freedom of expression includes the right to choose a medium of instruction in the mother tongue.” This was done while overturning a state decree requiring elementary schools to use English as the language of teaching.
“The law is long, but life is brief,” said Justice Ravikumar, whose father worked as a bench clerk in a magistrate’s court in Changanassery, Kerala. In 2013, the remark was made in the context of a person’s right to a quick trial. In his position as ASG, Justice Narasimha represented the government in the matter of the Italian marine. In the Ayodhya land title case, he also represented Hindu groups.
In addition to Justice Nagarathna, two individuals are in line to become Chief Justice based on seniority levels. Justice Vikram Nath will serve as chief justice from February to September 2027, while Justice PS Narasimha will serve from October 2027 to May 2028.
It is anticipated that the selection of Justice Nagarathna, Justice Kohli and Justice Trivedi would buck a troubling trends in the country’s top court: relatively few women have been sworn in as Supreme Court judges since the court’s establishment. Only eight women have been selected in the previous seven decades, beginning with M Fathima Beevi in 1989.
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Justice Indira Banerjee is the lone woman judge at the moment; she was promoted from the Madras High Court, where she was Chief Justice, on August 7, 2018. With the appointment of these nine justices, the Supreme Court now has 33 members, including the Chief Justice, out of a total of 34.
