The President has appointed Shri Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, Judge of the Supreme Court as the next Chief Justice of India with effect from November 18, 2019.

Shri Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde has been a Judge of the Supreme Court since April 12, 2013. Earlier he served as the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court for about six months since October 16, 2012. He has also been an Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court from March 29, 2000 and a Permanent Judge from March 28, 2002.

Shri Justice Bobde, born on April 24, 1956, was enrolled as an Advocate on September 13, 1978. He started his practice at the High Court Bench at Nagpur and the District Court at Nagpur and occasionally at the High Court at Bombay and the Supreme Court of India in civil, constitutional, labor, company, election, and taxation matters. He specialized in constitutional, administrative, company, environmental and election laws. Justice was born in a family of renowned lawyers in Nagpur, where his grandfather was a lawyer followed by his father being an advocate-general of Maharashtra and his elder brother being a senior SC lawyer along with an expert in the Constitutional Law.

After the completion of  graduation from SFS College Nagpur and having completed his LL.B. from  Nagpur University in  the year 1978. Justice was enrolled as an advocate practicing  at the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court as well as appeared before the Bombay seat and eventually before the Apex Court  and thereon became a  Senior Advocate in  the year 1998  and dealt with mostly issues pertaining to  civil, constitutional, labour, company law, election and taxation matters while specializing in constitutional, administrative, company, environmental and election laws.

Justice Bobde had also served as an additional judge of Bombay High Court for the year 29 March 2000   from wherein he had joined as a Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court in the year 16 October 2012  and later on as a Supreme Court Judge on 12 April 2013. 

MONUMENTAL JUDGMENTS

Aadhaar

The three-judge bench who gave the crackling judgment concerning the Adhaar involved Justice Bobde as one of the Judge s who gave ratification to a previous order of the SC by clarifying that an Indian citizen who does not possess an Adhaar Card shall not be deprived of basic services and subsidies from the government.

The Pro-life Issue

The two-judge bench of the SC,  comprised of Justice Bobde as one of the judges to reject a women’s plea of terminating her foetus that was based upon a medical board’s report which specified that the twenty-six week old foetus had a chance of surviving.

Religious sentiments
He along with Justice L. Nageswara Rao had upheld the banning of the Government of Karnataka for a book written by Mate Mahadevi upon the ground that it was outrageous and hurt the religious sentiments of the followers of Lord Basavanna.

Sale of Firecrackers:

Justice along with two other judges of the SC gave a verdict in the concerning issue of air pollution at the NCR while suspending the selling of firecrackers in that area.  

The other landmark judgments delivered by Justice includes right to privacy as a fundamental right of a person and the BCCI Case. 

Case of Sexual Harassment allegation against Justice Gogoi

Due to his immense respect and recognition amongst his peers, he was given the responsibility of handling the sexual harassment case against Justice Gogoi wherein he provided a clean chit to Justice Gogoi.

In future, we all are eagerly waiting for the delivery of judgment in the most awaited case of Ayodhya on November 15. 

Now with the onset of time and changing needs of the society, it is expected and we all are waiting and are thrilled to come across some more monumental  verdicts delivered by Justice and his bench to apply their rational mind and experience while ensuring that justice is captured and do away with the abuse of the process of law.