President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed senior most judge of the Supreme Court, Justice T.S. Thakur, who hails from Jammu and Kashmir, as the 43rd Chief Justice of India. He will succeed the present CJI H.L. Dattu, who retires on December 2.
Justice Thakur, who will take oath on December 3, have a tenure of little over one year and will retire on January 4, 2017. Following the Constitution Bench striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission law as unconstitutional, the collegium system has been revived and the procedure of appointing the seniormost judge as the CJI has been followed.
Justice Thakur became a judge of high court of J&K in February 1994 and transferred as judge of the Karnataka HC in March, 1994. He was appointed as a permanent judge in September, 1995. He was transferred as a judge of the high court of Delhi in July 2004; appointed as acting Chief Justice of Delhi HC in 2008 and took over as Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana HC on August 11, 2008. Elevated as Judge of Supreme Court in November 2009.
He ordered a CBI pr-obe into the Sharada scam and this led to the investigating agency unearthing a huge scandal involving high profile personalities. Justice Thakur was instrumental in preventing ICC Chairman N. Srinivasan from contesting for the post of president of BCCI.
