Senior-most judge of the Supreme Court Justice Tirath Singh Thakur was on Thursday sworn-in as the 43rd Chief Justice of India by President Pranab Mukherjee at a brief function held at the Rashtrapath
Senior-most judge of the Supreme Court Justice Tirath Singh Thakur was on Thursday sworn-in as the 43rd Chief Justice of India by President Pranab Mukherjee at a brief function held at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
He succeeds Justice H.L. Dattu who demitted office on Wednesday. Among those who attended the swearing-in ceremony were Prime Minister Narendra Modi, vice-president Hamid Ansari, outgoing CJI H.L. Dattu, several former CJIs including Justice P. Sathasivam, Kerala governor and Justice R.M. Lodha, retired SC and HC judges, senior lawyers and family members of Justice Thakur. He will have a tenure of about 13 months as the CJI and retire on January 3, 2017.
During his tenure in the last six years, Justice Thakur has rendered several landmark judgments. He ordered a CBI probe into the multi-crore Sarada scam in West Bengal and Orissa, which led to the investigating agency unearthing a huge scandal involving high profile personalities. In the BCCI case, Justice Thakur was instrumental in preventing ICC chairman N. Srinivasan from contesting for the post of president of BCCI.
The court did not even allow him to participate in the meetings on the ground of conflict of interest as his company India Cements was the owner of the franchise Chennai Super Kings.
Justice Thakur became a judge of the high court of J&K in February 1994 and transferred as judge of the high court of Karnataka in March 1994. He was appointed as a permanent judge in September 1995. He was then transferred as a Judge of the high court of Delhi in July 2004 and later appointed as an acting chief justice of the Delhi high court in 2008. Justice Thakur took over as the chief justice of the high court of Punjab and Haryana on August 11, 2008. He was elevated as a judge of Supreme Court in November 2009.
