India will get its first Chief Justice from the Sikh community in the new year as Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar will be sworn in as the next CJI on January 4.
The process for Justice Khehar's appointment as the next CJI was set in motion by incumbent CJI T S Thakur, who wrote to the Union government recommending his appointment as the next CJI. This is in sync with the tradition of the CJI being succeeded by the senior-most judge in the Supreme Court. Justice Thakur retires on January 3. In his letter to law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Justice Thakur described Justice Khehar as a competent and worthy successor. Interestingly, 64-year old Justice Khehar's appointment as CJI would mean persons from the Sikh community getting to occupy the three most important posts in Indian democracy over a period of time -President (Giani Zail Singh), PM (Manmohan Singh) and CJI. Justice Khehar was appointed as an SC judge on September 13, 2011.Justice Khehar will have a short tenure of a little over seven months -from January 4 till August 28. He earned a place in history when the five judge bench headed by him shot down the National Judicial Appointments Commission, a body being set up through a constitutional amendment unanimously passed by Parliament to select judges for the SC and HCs.
Justice Khehar authored the lead judgment and termed the NJAC a threat to independence of judiciary as the law minister was part of the committee to select judges.
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