Justice Surya Kant will take oath on November 24 and serve as the head of the judiciary until his retirement on February 9, 2027 ,a term of approximately 14 months. The recommendation follows the seniority principle traditionally followed in appointing the Chief Justice of India.
Born on February 10, 1962, in Petwad village of Hisar district, Haryana, Justice Surya Kant will be the first jurist from the state to occupy the country’s top judicial post. His early life was rooted in rural simplicity ,he studied in a village school without benches and worked in the fields alongside his father, a teacher. He first saw a city when he travelled to Hansi to take his Class 10 examinations.
After obtaining his law degree from Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, in 1984, he began practicing in the Punjab and Haryana High Court the following year. He was designated as a senior advocate in 2001 and later served as Haryana’s Advocate General. He was appointed as a High Court judge in 2004 and elevated to the Supreme Court in May 2019.
Justice Surya Kant has delivered several notable judgments, including those related to the abrogation of Article 370, the suspension of the sedition law, and the clean-up of Dera Sacha Sauda in 2017. He was also part of benches that examined the Pegasus surveillance case and directed the Election Commission to release voter exclusion data from Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision exercise.
