Gogoi as the next CJI

CJI Dipak Misra retires on October 2, recommends Justice Ranjan Gogoi as successor

NEW DELHI: Justice Ranjan Gogoi will succeed Justice Dipak Misra as Chief Justice of India, the first from Assam and north-east to hold the highest position in Indian judiciary.On Tuesday, Misra recommended to the President to appoint. His letter regarding this to law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad ended speculation whether he would deviate from the tradition of the seniormost apex court judge succeeding the CJI by succumbing to the hurt caused by the No.2’s participation in an unprecedented press conference by the four seniormost SC judges on January 12 during which they had attacked the CJI’s style of functioning.“I recommend Justice Gogoi as my successor to the post of Chief Justice of India,” he wrote to Prasad. With the law minister already making public the government’s stand not to tinker with tradition, the President is likely to soon notify Gogoi’s appointment as the 46th CJI on October 3.It is a convention that an outgoing CJI recommends the name of his successor a month before retirement. Misra followed this, given that September 2 and 3 were public holidays. In recent history, this convention was breached when CJI S H Kapadia delayed recommending his successor, Justice Altamas Kabir, who did the same to next-in-line Justice P Sathasivam. The latter restored the convention by recommending Justice R M Lodha as his successor exactly a month before retirement.Gogoi, 64, will remain CJI-designate from the date of the presidential notification till taking oath as CJI on October 3. He will have a tenure of one year and 44 days before retiring on November 17, 2019.As CJI, Justice Gogoi will outlast his press conference colleagues. While Justice J Chelameswar has already retired, Justices Kurian Joseph and Madan B Lokur will follow suit on November 29 and December 30, respectively.In 2019, the new collegium will comprise CJI Gogoi and Justices A K Sikri (who will retire on March 3, 2019), S A Bobde, N V Ramana and Arun Mishra. After March 3, Justice R F Nariman will join the collegium.Justice Gogoi’s participation in the presser, may possibly lead to his tenure being frequently tested on touchstone of his statement, made days after the presser, that to defend democracy, “we need not only independent judges and noisy journalists, but independent journalists and sometimes noisy judges”.If one goes by the grievance expressed by SC judges during the presser, there is likelihood of PILs and important cases, which are now mainly heard by CJI-led bench being spread among 12-13 benches that function in the SC daily.