Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai will be sworn in on Wednesday as the 52nd Chief Justice of India (CJI). He will assume office a day after Justice Khanna formally demits office. Justice Gavai will be the first Buddhist CJI and only the second from the Dalit community, after former CJI KG Balakrishnan, who held office in 2007, to take over the highest judicial post in India.
Justice Khanna served a short tenure of just six months after succeeding former CJI Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud in November last year.
Justice Gavai has often spoken of the greatness of the Constitution of India that enabled his destiny. According to the Indian Express, last year during a speech, he said, “It is solely due to Dr B R Ambedkar’s efforts that someone like me, who studied in a semi-slum area at a municipal school, could attain this position." He further ended the speech with the slogan “Jai Bhim".
Notably, Justice Gavai is expected to serve for about six months, retiring on 23 November 2025 upon reaching the age of 65.
Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai was born on November 24, 196,0, in Amravati, Maharashtra. He enrolled as a lawyer on March 16, 1985 and initially worked with the late Raja S Bhonsale, former Advocate General and High Court judge, until 1987.
He began independent practice at the Bombay High Court in 1987, and from 1990 onward, mainly appeared before the Nagpur Bench. Justice Gavai then was appointed Assistant Government Pleader and Additional Public Prosecutor at the Bombay High Court, Nagpur Bench, in August 1992, and later became the Government Pleader and Public Prosecutor in January 2000.
He was elevated as an Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court in November 2003 and became a permanent judge on November 12, 2005. During his tenure, he presided over benches at Mumbai, Nagpur, Aurangabad, and Panaji, handling cases across all domains.
He was elevated to the Supreme Court in 2019, and in 2025, he was named as the next CJI by Justice Sanjiv Khanna.
Justice Gavai is known for his rulings in contentious and high-stakes political cases. He was part of the Constitution Bench that struck down the 2018 Electoral Bonds Scheme, ruling that it violated citizens’ right to information and undermined transparency in political funding.
He was also part of the bench for important cases, including those involving Newsclick founder-editor Prabir Purkayastha and former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. In November 2024, a bench led by him held that demolishing citizens’ properties without following due process was contrary to the rule of law.
