Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 11: Justice Sanjiv Khanna on Monday took over as the 51st Chief Justice of India succeeding Mr Justice DY Chandrachud, who retired from the country’s top legal post on Sunday.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to the 64-year-old judge at a ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Justice Khanna will serve a six-month term as the Chief Justice of India before he retires on May 13 next year. Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other ministers and Mr Justice Chandrachud attended the ceremony.
Born in Delhi, Chief Justice Khanna went to Modern School Barakhamba Road before moving to St Stephen’s College. He studied law at Delhi University’s Campus Law College. He has earlier worked as a lawyer before joining the Delhi High Court as a judge in 2005. He moved to Supreme Court in 2019.
Chief Justice Khanna has been part of several landmark judgments, including upholding the sanctity of Electronic Voting Machines and the revocation of Article 370 that gave Jammu and Kashmir special status. He was also part of the bench that declared the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional.
His father, Justice Dev Raj Khanna, was a judge in the Delhi High Court and his mother Saroj Khanna a lecturer at Lady Shri Ram College. But CJI Khanna’s idol in life was his uncle Justice Hans Raj Khanna, also a senior judge of the Supreme Court but was denied the CJI post when Mrs Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. Justice HR Khanna was superceded by a junior judge apparently for giving an adverse judgement against imposition of emergency.
Justice HR Khanna is still remembered for his minority judgment in the Emergency era. Justice Hans Raj Khanna was the sole dissenting judge in the landmark judgment that said a person’s right of not to be unlawfully detained can be suspended in the interest of the State.
Justice Hans Raj Khanna was born in 1912 and completed his education in Amritsar and then started out as a lawyer. He was appointed district and sessions judge in 1952 and later became a judge of high courts in Delhi and Punjab. He was appointed a Supreme Court judge in 1971 and was in line for the Chief Justice of India post in 1977.
However, it was not to be. The Indira Gandhi government imposed the Emergency in 1975. In 1976, a five-judge Constitution bench heard the ADM Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla case and ruled that the right to personal liberty can be suspended in the interest of State. Justice Khanna was the sole dissenting judge in that 4:1 verdict. The majority included then Chief Justice AN Ray, Justice MH Beg, Justice YV Chandrachud and Justice PN Bhagwati.
In his judgment, Justice Hans Raj Khanna said the law of preventive detention without trial “is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty.” “Such a law makes deep inroads into basic human freedoms which we all cherish and which occupy prime position among the higher values of life,” he wrote. Nine months after the judgment, the Indira Gandhi government appointed Justice Beg the Chief Justice, superseding Justice Khanna who was in the line for the top post. Justice Khanna resigned soon after.
Another key verdict Justice Khanna is known for is the Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala judgment in 1973 which saw a 13-judge bench of the Supreme Court outline the basic doctrine of the Constitution. In the landmark verdict passed by a 7-6 majority, the Supreme Court had asserted its right to strike down amendments that violated the fundamental architecture of the Constitution.
Justice Khanna wrote in his judgment that the Parliament had power to amend the Constitution but the basic structure should remain intact. Following his resignation as a top court judge, Justice Hans Raj Khanna received a request from Janata Party to contest the elections. But he refused. When the Indira Gandhi government lost the 1977 general election, the Janata Party approached him to head the probe panel investigating Emergency-related cases. Justice Khanna refused because he felt it he would appear biased.
He held the post of the chairman of Law Commission from 1977 to 1979 without any pay. In 1979, the Charan Singh government named him Union Law Minister, but he resigned in three days. In 1982, he was the Opposition-backed candidate for President, but lost to Zail Singh. Justice Hans Raj Khanna was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1999.
Justice Hans Raj Khanna died in 2008. He was 95. Nine years after his death, the ADM Jabalpur verdict was overruled by a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the Puttuswamy vs Union of India judgment. The bench noted that “Justice Khanna was right in holding that the recognition of the right to life and personal liberty under the Constitution does not denude the existence of that right, apart from it nor can there be a fatuous assumption that in adopting the Constitution the people of India surrendered the most precious aspects of the human persona, namely, life, liberty and freedom to the State on whose mercy these rights would depend”. It held that judgments by the four judges in the majority were “seriously flawed” and that “life and personal liberty are inalienable to human existence.”
CJI Sanjiv Khanna’s parents wanted their son to become a chartered accountant because a legal career had taller challenges. But the future Chief Justice was inspired by his uncle who had the courage to take on the State. “He always considered his uncle an idol and used to keenly follow his work,” his close aide said. He has preserved all the copies of Justice HR Khanna’s judgments, his notes and registers, the source said. The judge plans to donate them to the Supreme Court’s library when he retires. In 2019, Justice Sanjiv Khanna’s first day as a Supreme Court judge was in the same courtroom his uncle once sat in.