Chief Justice of India (1950-Present)
Explore the list and tenures of Chief Justices of India (1950-Present). Essential legal knowledge at your fingertips!
The Chief Justice of India is the head of the judiciary system in India. The chief justice is the head of the Supreme Court and is responsible for the allocation of cases and appointment of constitutional benches which deal with important matters of law.
The Constitution of India grants plenary power to the President of India to nominate and with the advice and consent of the Parliament of India, appoint a chief justice, who serves until they reach the age of sixty-five, resign, retire, is impeached and convicted, or die.
Article 145 of the Constitution gives the right to the Chief Justice of India to allocate the respective matters of relevance to the bench of judges. On the administrative side, the chief justice carries out the following functions: maintenance of the roster; appointment of court officials and general and miscellaneous matters relating to the supervision and functioning of the Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice of India is appointed by the President of India on the basis of nomination by other judges of the supreme court.
List of Chief Justices of India
There have been 50 Chief justices in India to date. Justice H J Kania served as the First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. The list of Chief Justices of India is given below:
| S.No. | Chief Justice of India | Tenure |
| 1. | Justice H.J. Kania | 26 January 1950 – 6 November 1951 |
| 2. | Justice M. Patanjali Sastri | 7 November 1951 – 3 January 1954 |
| 3. | Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan | 4 January 1954 – 22 December 1954 |
| 4. | Justice Bijan Kumar Mukherjea | 23 December 1954 – 31 January 1956 |
| 5. | Justice Sudhi Ranjan Das | 1 February 1956 – 30 September 1959 |
| 6. | Justice Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha | 1 October 1959 – 31 January 1964 |
| 7. | Justice P.B. Gajendragadkar | 1 February 1964 – 15 March 1966 |
| 8. | Justice Amal Kumar Sarkar | 16 March 1966 – 29 June 1966 |
| 9. | Justice K. Subba Rao | 30 June 1966 – 11 April 1967 |
| 10. | Justice Kailas Nath Wanchoo | 12 April 1967 – 24 February 1968 |
| 11. | Justice Mohammad Hidayatullah | 25 February 1968 – 16 December 1970 |
| 12. | Justice J.C. Shah | 17 December 1970 – 21 January 1971 |
| 13. | Justice S.M. Sikri | 22 January 1971 – 25 April 1973 |
| 14. | Justice A.N. Ray | 26 April 1973 – 27 January 1977 |
| 15. | Justice Mirza Hameedullah Beg | 29 January 1977 – 21 February 1978 |
| 16. | Justice Y.V. Chandrachud | 22 February 1978 – 11 July 1985 |
| 17. | Justice P.N. Bhagwati | 12 July 1985 – 20 December 1986 |
| 18. | Justice Raghunandan Swarup Pathak | 21 December 1986 – 18 June 1989 |
| 19. | Justice E.S. Venkataramiah | 19 June 1989 – 17 December 1989 |
| 20. | Justice Sabyasachi Mukharji | 18 December 1989 – 25 September 1990 |
| 21. | Justice Ranganath Mishra | 26 September 1990 – 24 November 1991 |
| 22. | Justice Kamal Narain Singh | 25 November 1991 – 12 December 1991 |
| 23. | Justice M.H. Kania | 13 December 1991 – 17 November 1992 |
| 24. | Justice Lalit Mohan Sharma | 18 November 1992 – 11 February 1993 |
| 25. | Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah | 12 February 1993 – 24 October 1994 |
| 26. | Justice A.M. Ahmadi | 25 October 1994 – 24 March 1997 |
| 27. | Justice J.S. Verma | 25 March 1997 – 17 January 1998 |
| 28. | Justice Madan Mohan Punchhi | 18 January 1998 – 9 October 1009 |
| 29. | Justice Adarsh Sein Anand | 10 October 1998 – 31 October 2001 |
| 30. | Justice Sam Piroj Barucha | 1 November 2001 – 5 May 2002 |
| 31. | Justice B.N. Kirpal | 6 May 2002 – 7 November 2002 |
| 32. | Justice G.B. Pattanaik | 8 November 2002 – 18 December 2002 |
| 33. | Justice V.N. Khare | 19 December 2002 – 1 May 2004 |
| 34. | Justice S. Rajendra Babu | 2 May 2004 – 31 May 2004 |
| 35. | Justice Ramesh Chandra Lahoti | 1 June 2004 – 31 October 2005 |
| 36. | Justice Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal | 1 November 2005 – 13 January 2007 |
| 37. | Justice K.G. Balakrishnan | 14 January 2007 – 12 May 2010 |
| 38. | Justice S.H. Kapadia | 12 May 2010 – 28 September 2012 |
| 39. | Justice Altamas Kabir | 29 September 2012 – 18 July 2013 |
| 40. | Justice P. Sathasivam | 19 July 2013 – 26 April 2014 |
| 41. | Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha | 27 April 2014 – 27 September 2014 |
| 42. | Justice H.L. Dattu | 28 September 2014 – 2 December 2015 |
| 43. | Justice T.S. Thakur | 3 December 2015 – 3 January 2017 |
| 44. | Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar | 4 January 2017 – 27 August 2017 |
| 45. | Justice Dipak Mishra | 28 August 2017 – 2 October 2018 |
| 46. | Justice Ranjan Gogoi | 3 October 2018 – 17 November 2019 |
| 47. | Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde | 18 November 2019 – 23 April 2021 |
| 48. | 24 April 2021 – 26 August 2022 | |
| 49. | Justice Uday Umesh Lalit | 27 August 2022 – 08 November 2022 |
| 50. | 09 November 2022 – 10 November 2024 |