Chief Justice of India

The chief justice of India (IAST: Bhārat kē Mukhya Nyāyādhīśa) is the highest-ranking officer of the Indian judiciary and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of India. The Constitution of India grants power to the president of India to appoint, as recommended by outgoing chief justice in consultation with other judges as envisaged in Article 124 (2) of the Constitution, the next chief justice, who will serve until they reach the age of sixty-five or are removed by the constitutional process of impeachment.

As per convention, the name suggested by the incumbent chief justice is almost always the next senior most judge in the Supreme Court. However this convention has been broken twice. In 1973, Justice A. N. Ray was appointed superseding three senior judges. Also, in 1977 Justice Mirza Hameedullah Beg was appointed as the chief justice superseding Justice Hans Raj Khanna.

As head of the Supreme Court, the chief justice is responsible for the allocation of cases and appointment of constitutional benches which deal with important matters of law. In accordance with Article 145 of the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court Rules of Procedure of 1966, the chief justice allocates all work to the other judges who are bound to refer the matter back to them (for re-allocation) in any case where they require it to be looked into by a larger bench of more judges.

On the administrative side, the chief justice carries out functions of maintenance of the roster, appointment of court officials and general and miscellaneous matters relating to the supervision and functioning of the Supreme Court.

The 50th and present chief justice is Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud. He was sworn in as the 50th chief justice of India on 9 November 2022.