- 24th morning will see a second Telugu as CJI
New Delhi: Justice NV Ramana will be sworn in by President Ramnath Kovind at 11 am on Saturday, 24 April 2021 at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The outgoing Chief Justice of India Justice Sharad A Bobde, who demitted the office on Friday, had recommended Justice Ramana’s name for the post of CJI. The government had accepted the recommendation and the president appointed Justice Ramana as 48th CJI. He will be the second Telugu person to occupy the highest position in Indian judiciary. The first was Justice Koka Subba Rao from Eluru.
Justice Ramana is from an agricultural family at Ponnavaram village near Kanchikacherla of Krishna district. Justice Ramana while studying at Nagarjuna University had worked as a reporter of Eenadu newspaper in 1979-80 before the Vijayawada edition was launched. He was an active participant in ‘Jai Andhra’ movement in 1972 along with Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu. Ramana enrolled himself as an advocate in 1983 and specialized in constitutional law, criminal, service matters and inter-State river disputes. He was appointed a permanent judge of Andhra Pradesh high court in 2000. He was elevated as chief justice of Delhi high court in 2013 and to the Supreme Court a year later.
As a Supreme Court judge, Justice Ramana is known as a person who talks less and thinks more in order to give clarity to judicial issues. He is associated with some radical judgments. He headed the bench which said that the criminal cases against the political leaders have to be dealt with urgently and the hearing in such cases has to be completed in one year. This has not moved with the expected speed since then. One has to see what kind of steps he would be taking as CJI to implement the decision of the bench headed by him. He also asked the government to restore internet connectivity in Jammu & Kashmir. He said a number of times that the country is facing twin challenged of poverty and access to judiciary.
Justice Ramana’s tenure as chief justice would end on 26 August 2022. Meanwhile, K.K. Venugopal, Attorney General of India, commented on Friday that the tenure of the chief justice should be at least three years for him to implement judicial reforms which were long due. Justice Bobde did not appoint a single judge during his 14-month tenure. There are a lot of vacancies in high courts and Supreme Court. This is one of the challenges Justice Ramana would be facing during his tenure.
