Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, today, took oath as the 47th Chief Justice of India in the presence of officials and bureaucrats including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was administered by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind. CJI Bobde has been part of key cases and high profile cases including the recent Ayodhya verdict.
Justice Bobde who is 63 will serve for 17 months as the CJI, and his tenure will come to an end on 23rd of April 2021. He succeeded CJI Ranjan Gogoi.
Justice Bobde took the oath in English at the ceremony which held in the Durbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhawan (President House).
Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Vice President of India Hamid Ansari, Former Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh, and several other senior ministers were present at the ceremony.
In an interview with PTI Justice Bobde said that he will not let people’s reputation be sacrificed in order to satisfy the wishes of the citizens to know. He added, he will use a conservative approach when it comes to disclosing the Collegium’s total deliberations on rejection of names for the appointment in the higher judiciary.
When asked about the huge vacant positions of judges in courts and the deficient judicial infrastructure, Bobde said he will take the same ‘logical end’ used by CJI Gogoi, his predecessor.
On 9th November 2019, Justice Bodbe including 4 other justices’ finally passed their judgement on the Ayodhya land dispute case which was seeking closure since almost 70 years in the court.
Additionally, Justice Bobde was also a part of the 9 judge bench of the Supreme Court which ruled that Right to Privacy is a Constitutionally protected Fundamental Right in India. The bench was headed by that time’s CJI JS Khehar, and the judgement was passed in August 2017.
Justice Bobde comes from a family of lawyers based in Mumbai. His father, Late Arvind Shriniwas Bobde were not only a senior advocate himself but had been the Chairman of the Bar Council of and also Maharashtra advocate general twice.
Justice Bobde led a 3 member in house committee which included Justice Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee on a sexual harassment complaint raised by a Supreme Court staff against CJI Gogoi. CJI Gogoi was acquitted by the committee for the charge.
Justice Bobde was also a member of a 3 judge bench which concluded that an Indian citizen can be denied basic and government services if he/she do not have Aadhaar Card in 2015.
Justice Bobde was also a part of a 3 judge bench of the apex court, where in they suspended the sale of fire crackers in Delhi NCR because of the severe air pollution in the year 2016. Justice TS Thakur and Arjan K Sikri were also part of the 3 judge bench.
Justice Bobde was born on 24th of April 1956 in Nagpur, Maharashtra in a family of lawyers, his grandfather, father and brother were all lawyers. Justice, now CJI Bobde is an alumni of Nagpur University, completed his studies in Bachelor of Arts and LLB, and later enrolled in the Bar Council of Maharashtra as an advocate in 1978.
After practicing as an advocate at the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court in both Supreme Court and Bombay High Court for almost 21 years he was given the designation of the Senior Advocate in 1998.
On 29th March, 2000he became the Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court and on 16th October 2012 he took an oath as the Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court.
Bobde became a Supreme Court Judge on 12th April 2013, and today, on 18th November 2019 he has become the Chief Justice of India.
