On Wednesday, Justice DY Chandrachud was sworn in as India’s 50th Chief Justice. Droupadi Murmu, President of India, administered the oath of office to Justice Chandrachud today at 10 a.m. at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Justice Chandrachud succeeded previous Chief Justice UU Lalit, who retired on Tuesday.

On November 11, 1959, Justice Chandrachud was born. He graduated from St Stephen’s College in Delhi in 1979 before going on to earn his LL.B. from Delhi University in 1982 and his LL.M. from Harvard University in 1983. In 1986, he received his Doctor of Juridical Sciences (SJD) from Harvard.

From 1998 until 2000, Justice Chandrachud served as India’s Additional Solicitor General. In 1998, the Bombay High Court designated him as a Senior Advocate, and he appeared in several significant cases involving public interest litigation, the rights of bonded women workers, the rights of HIV positive workers in the workplace, contract labour, and the rights of religious and linguistic minorities.

On March 29, 2000, he was appointed as an extra judge of the Bombay High Court, where he remained till his appointment as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court on October 31, 2013.

On May 13, 2016, he was appointed to the Supreme Court.  He has since penned a number of significant decisions. He was the lone dissenting judge, on a nine-judge Constitution Bench, who held the Aadhaar Act to be unconstitutional for having been passed as a Money Bill.

The Supreme Court E-Court Committee, chaired by Justice Chandrachud, has been essential in developing infrastructure for live-streaming of court sessions in India, particularly during a period when hearings were seriously hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.