List of chief justices of India

This is a list of all Chief Justices of India (CJI). There are a total of 47 Chief Justices of India that have served since the establishment of the Supreme Court of India in 1950, which superseded the Federal Court of India. The current Incumbent Chief Justice is Sharad Arvind Bobde, who entered office on 18 November 2019.

The Supreme Court of India

List of Chief Justices of India

Federal Court of India (1937–50)

The Federal Court of India came into being on 1 October 1937. The seat of the court was the Chamber of Princes in the Parliament building in Delhi. It began with a Chief Justice and two puisne judges. The first Chief Justice was Sir Maurice Gwyer and the other two judges were Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman and M. R. Jayakar. It functioned until the establishment of the Supreme Court of India on 28 January 1950.

No.	Name (birth–death)	Period of office		Length of term (days)	Bar	Appointed by
1	Sir Maurice Gwyer (1878–1952)	1 October 1937	25 April 1943^‡	2,032	Inner Temple	The Marquess of Linlithgow
Acting	Sir Srinivas Varadachariar	25 April 1943	7 June 1943	43
2	Sir Patrick Spens (1885–1973)	7 June 1943	14 August 1947	1,529	Inner Temple
3	Sir H. J. Kania (1890–1951)	14 August 1947	26 January 1950	896	Bombay High Court	The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma

Supreme Court of India (1950–present)

Since the birth of the Republic of India on 26 January 1950, 47 judges have served as the Chief Justice of India (CJI).[1] H. J. Kania was the inaugural CJI. The current incumbent is S.A. Bobde who took office of Chief Justice of India on 18 November 2019. Justice Y. V. Chandrachud is the longest serving Chief Justice, serving over 7 years (February 1978 – July 1985), while Kamal Narain Singh is the shortest serving, for 17 days (25 November 1991 – 12 December 1991).

No.	Name (birth–death)	Period of office		Length of term (days)	Bar	Appointed by (President of India)
1	H. J. Kania (1890–1951)	26 January 1950	6 November 1951^†	649	Bombay High Court	Rajendra Prasad
2	M. Patanjali Sastri (1889–1963)	7 November 1951	3 January 1954	788	Madras High Court
3	Mehr Chand Mahajan (1889–1967)	4 January 1954	22 December 1954	352	Punjab and Haryana High Court
4	Bijan Kumar Mukherjea (1891–1956)	23 December 1954	31 January 1956^‡	404	Calcutta High Court
5	Sudhi Ranjan Das (1894–1977)	1 February 1956	30 September 1959	1337	Calcutta High Court
6	Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha (1899–1986)	1 October 1959	31 January 1964	1583	Patna High Court
7	P. B. Gajendragadkar (1901–1981)	1 February 1964	15 March 1966	773	Bombay High Court	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
8	Amal Kumar Sarkar (1901–2001)	16 March 1966	29 June 1966	105	Calcutta High Court
9	Koka Subba Rao (1902–1976)	30 June 1966	11 April 1967^‡	285	Madras High Court
10	Kailas Nath Wanchoo (1903–1988)	12 April 1967	24 February 1968	318	Allahabad High Court
11	Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992)[2]	25 February 1968	16 December 1970	1025	Bombay High Court	Zakir Hussain
12	Jayantilal Chhotalal Shah (1906–1991)	17 December 1970	21 January 1971	35	Bombay High Court	Varahagiri Venkata Giri
13	Sarv Mittra Sikri (1908–1992)	22 January 1971	25 April 1973	824	Lahore High Court
14	A. N. Ray (1912–2009)	26 April 1973	27 January 1977	1372	Calcutta High Court
15	Mirza Hameedullah Beg (1913–1988)	29 January 1977	21 February 1978	389	Allahabad High Court	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
16	Y. V. Chandrachud (1920–2008)	22 February 1978	11 July 1985	2696	Bombay High Court	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
17	P. N. Bhagwati (1921–2017)	12 July 1985	20 December 1986	526	Gujarat High Court	Zail Singh
18	Raghunandan Swarup Pathak (1924–2007)	21 December 1986	18 June 1989^‡	940	Allahabad High Court	Zail Singh
19	Engalaguppe Seetharamiah Venkataramiah (1924–1997)	19 June 1989	17 December 1989	181	Karnataka High Court	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
20	Sabyasachi Mukharji (1927–1990)	18 December 1989	25 September 1990^†	281	Calcutta High Court
21	Ranganath Misra (1926–2012)	26 September 1990	24 November 1991	424	Orissa High Court
22	Kamal Narain Singh (1926–)	25 November 1991	12 December 1991	17	Allahabad High Court
23	Madhukar Hiralal Kania (1927–2016)	13 December 1991	17 November 1992	340	Bombay High Court
24	Lalit Mohan Sharma (1928–2008)	18 November 1992	11 February 1993	85	Patna High Court	Shankar Dayal Sharma
25	M. N. Venkatachaliah (1929–)	12 February 1993	24 October 1994	619	Karnataka High Court
26	Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi (1932–)	25 October 1994	24 March 1997	881	Gujarat High Court
27	J. S. Verma (1933–2013)	25 March 1997	17 January 1998	298	Madhya Pradesh High Court
28	Madan Mohan Punchhi (1933–2015)	18 January 1998	9 October 1998	264	Punjab and Haryana High Court	Kocheril Raman Narayanan
29	Adarsh Sein Anand (1936–2017)	10 October 1998	31 October 2001	1,117	Jammu and Kashmir High Court
30	Sam Piroj Bharucha (1937–)	1 November 2001	5 May 2002	185	Bombay High Court
31	Bhupinder Nath Kirpal (1937–)	6 May 2002	7 November 2002	185	Delhi High Court
32	Gopal Ballav Pattanaik (1937–)	8 November 2002	18 December 2002	40	Orissa High Court	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
33	V. N. Khare (1939–)	19 December 2002	1 May 2004	499	Allahabad High Court
34	S. Rajendra Babu (1939–)	2 May 2004	31 May 2004	29	Karnataka High Court
35	Ramesh Chandra Lahoti (1940–)	1 June 2004	31 October 2005	517	Madhya Pradesh High Court
36	Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal (1942–2015)	1 November 2005	13 January 2007	438	Delhi High Court
37	K. G. Balakrishnan (1945–)	14 January 2007	12 May 2010	1,214	Kerala High Court
38	S. H. Kapadia (1947–2016)	12 May 2010	28 September 2012	870	Bombay High Court	Pratibha Patil
39	Altamas Kabir (1948–2017)	29 September 2012	18 July 2013	292	Calcutta High Court	Pranab Mukherjee
40	P. Sathasivam (1949–)	19 July 2013	26 April 2014	281	Madras High Court
41	Rajendra Mal Lodha (1949–)	27 April 2014	27 September 2014	153	Rajasthan High Court
42	H. L. Dattu (1950–)	28 September 2014	2 December 2015	430	Karnataka High Court
43	T. S. Thakur (1952–)	3 December 2015	3 January 2017	397	Jammu and Kashmir High Court
44	Jagdish Singh Khehar (1952–)	4 January 2017	27 August 2017	235	Punjab and Haryana High Court
45	Dipak Misra (1953–)	28 August 2017	2 October 2018	400	Orissa High Court	Ram Nath Kovind
46	Ranjan Gogoi (1954–)	3 October 2018	17 November 2019	410	Gauhati High Court
47	Sharad Arvind Bobde (1956–)	18 November 2019[3]	Incumbent	436	Bombay High Court

Notes

^† – Date of Death
^‡ – Date of Resignation

References

"List of Retired Hon'ble Chief Justices". Archived from the original on 19 December 2016. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
Also served as Acting President of India and Vice-President of India.
"Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde takes oath as 47th CJI". Times of India. 18 November 2019.

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[1] "List of Retired Hon'ble Chief Justices". Archived from the original on 19 December 2016. Retrieved 6 January 2012.

[2] Also served as Acting President of India and Vice-President of India.

[3] "Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde takes oath as 47th CJI". Times of India. 18 November 2019.

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List of chief justices of India