Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, a Supreme Court judge, was sworn in as India’s 50th Chief Justice on Wednesday, succeeding Uday Umesh Lalit. At Rashtrapati Bhawan in Delhi, President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to DY Chandrachud.
Chandrachud will have a tenure of over two years.
Justice DY Chandrachud, born on November 11, 1959, was appointed as the Additional Solicitor General of India in 1998. In 2013, he was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. He has also served on the Bombay High Court and was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2016.
Some notable judgments by Justice DY Chandrachud are on the Indian Constitution, comparative constitutional law, human rights, gender justice, public interest litigation, criminal laws, and commercial laws.
During his tenure as a Supreme Court judge, DY Chandrachud overturned two judgments of his father, YV Chandrachud, the 16th Chief Justice of India. Chandrachud has been a member of several Constitution benches and landmark Supreme Court decisions, including those concerning the Ayodhya land dispute, the right to privacy, and adultery.
Meanwhile, DY Chandrachud was a member of the bench that delivered landmark decisions on decriminalising same-sex relationships after partially overturning Section 377 of the IPC, the validity of the Aadhaar scheme, and the Sabarimala issue.
Recently, a bench led by him broadened the scope of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and its accompanying rules to include unmarried women seeking abortions between 20 and 24 weeks of pregnancy.
The Justice Chandrachud-led bench had also issued several directives to alleviate people’s suffering during the Covid-19 crisis, describing the pandemic’s brutal second wave last year as a “national crisis.”