A first generation lawyer from Haryana, Justice Surya Kant has only just been sworn in as the 53rd Chief Justice of India (CJI).
With a tenure of 13 months ahead of him, Justice Kant laid out his plans even before taking the oath of office. In a brief interaction with the media over the weekend, Justice Kant asserted that the Indian judiciary must focus on "swadeshi jurisprudence", expand legal aid and tackle case pendency headfirst.
Apart from his role on the Bench and on the administrative side, Justice Kant will have to guide the Indian judiciary through waters that have been choppy for some time.
The case of High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma, who has been accused of corruption, continues to taint the image of the judiciary. Controversial judicial appointments and transfers continue to plague the Collegium system. Outgoing CJI BR Gavai's "regret" at not having elevated a single woman judge to the Supreme Court and the general lack of gender diversity in the higher judiciary continue to raise eyebrows.
In this article, we look at Justice Kant's record as a judge to gauge what we can expect from the new CJI.
Justice Kant was born on February 10, 1962. According to his profile on the Supreme Court website, he was born to a middle class family. After graduating from the Government Post Graduate College at Hisar in 1981, Justice Kant went on to complete his LL.B. from Rohtak's Maharishi Dayanand University in 1984.
He started practicing law at the district courts in Hisar in 1984. A year later, he moved to Chandigarh to establish his practice before the the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He specialised in constitutional, civil and service matters and represented several universities, corporations, banks and, on occasion, the High Court itself.
On July 7, 2000, he was appointed as Haryana's youngest ever Advocate General (AG) at age 38.
He was designated as a Senior Advocate in 2001 and continued in his post as AG till his appointment as a permanent judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on January 9, 2004.
As a High Court judge, Justice Kant notably authored a landmark judgment on prisoners’ right to have conjugal life and procreate within jail premises. He also ordered a probe into allegations of money laundering levelled against Dera Sacha Sauda and ordered a probe against former Punjab Cabinet minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia.
While serving as a judge, Justice Kant also earned his LL.M. degree from from the Directorate of Distance Education, Kurukshetra University.
He later served as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
However, his appointment was anything but smooth, as Justice AK Goel (then a Supreme Court judge) penned a letter to then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra disagreeing with the proposal to appoint him as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
In his letter, Justice Goel made a note of allegations of corruption against Justice Kant and expressed his disagreement with the recommendation until an inquiry was conducted into the allegations against Justice Kant.
Moreover, by recommending Justice Kant's name for elevation, the Collegium superseded Justice AK Mittal, who was higher up in the seniority list.
Justice Goel’s opinion eventually counted for little, with the Collegium sticking by its initial decision. By a notification dated October 3, 2018, Justice Kant was appointed as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. Justice Goel’s calls for an inquiry into the allegations made against Justice Kant never took place.
Less than 8 months later, on May 24, 2019, Justice Kant was sworn in as a judge of the Supreme Court of India. He will serve as CJI from November 24, 2025 to February 9, 2027.
There is no way to accurately predict how CJI Kant might handle the issues that will come up before him over the next year, both on the judicial and administrative sides.
At most, we can chronicle his record as a Supreme Court judge to see where he has landed on these issues in the past. Below is a non-exhaustive list of topics of public importance and how Justice Kant has handled them so far. However, it is to be noted that some of these are based on public speeches and not any judicial action. As past CJIs have taught us, words on the stage don't always match action on the Bench.
Freedom of Speech
The cases handled by Justice Kant that received the most flak in the recent past all deal with one crucial cornerstone of democracy - freedom of speech.
Perhaps the most infamous is the 2022 case of former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. Sharma had come under fire after her remarks on national television about Prophet Muhammad led to violent protests and riots in many states. She moved the Supreme Court to transfer all the FIRs registered against her to Delhi. However, she was met with a very unimpressed bench - one headed by Justice Kant. He said that Sharma was single-handedly responsible for fanning flames across India and should apologise to the whole nation.
Even though these were only oral remarks, the response from society was swift and critical. 15 former High Court judges, 77 retired bureaucrats and 25 armed forces veterans signed an open statement seeking to recall the remarks. In the wake of this controversy, many netizens circulated a photograph of journalists, wrongly identified judges including Justice Kant to be among them and alluded to collusion with “naxal groups” and “communists”. A Bengaluru court later passed a John Doe order to take down all such posts.
Then came the case of Ashoka University faculty member Ali Khan Mahmudabad, who was booked for a Facebook post on Operation Sindoor. While the Bench granted Mahmudabad interim bail, Justice Kant's oral remarks during the hearing raised many an eyebrow. Having admitted that he did not understand the meaning of the post, Justice Kant strongly objected to its tone, tenor and timing. He ordered a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the DGP of Haryana Police - the same agency that undertook the initial investigation. The same Bench later pulled up the SIT for apparently seeking to expand the scope of its probe and stayed the proceedings against Mahmudabad.
A Bench of Justices Kant and Joymala Bagchi recently ordered another SIT probe into Madhya Pradesh minister Kunwar Vijay Shah, who was accused of making derogatory comments about Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, one of the Indian Army officers who held media briefings during Operation Sindoor.
At a time when comedians and podcasters are facing flak for their content, the courts have done little to protect their free speech.
Ranveer Allahbadia, more commonly known as Beerbiceps on social media, earned Justice Kant's ire for his comments on the show India's Got Latent. While the Bench ultimately protected him from arrest, Justice Kant made strong remarks questioning Allahbadia's "depraved mind" and "condemnable behaviour".
Comedians Samay Raina, Vipul Goyal, Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, Sonali Thakkar aka Sonali Aditya Desai and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar were also ordered to tender public apologies for allegedly making insensitive remarks against persons with disabilities.
In public appearances, Justice Kant has both batted for protecting the right to freedom of speech, especially for the media, while also stating that judicial independence is facing a subtle but serious threat in the form of viral misinformation, sentiment-driven commentary and media trials.
"Transparency can be weaponised—leading to misinterpretation rather than insight. When judicial decisions are judged in the court of public opinion before they are understood in the court of law, the result is not civic empowerment but confusion, cynicism, and, ultimately, erosion of trust," he said earlier this year.
Bail
While Justice Kant has evidently not shied away from strongly criticising some litigants seeking bail, benches headed by him have usually ended up protecting people from arrest and granting bail. The judge has been critical of "the continued reliance on colonial-era investigation practices" which use pre-trial incarceration for optics even when it serves no other purpose.
He has also called for institutional responses such as setting up of courts to exclusively hear and swiftly dispose of cases under special statutes in which the grant of bail is subject to greater rigour.
Justice Kant led the Bench which granted bail to former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case related to corruption allegations surrounding the now scrapped Delhi Excise Policy of 2021-22.
Election Commission and SIR
One of the most important cases being heard by Justice Kant in the recent past is the case challenging the validity of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being undertaken by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The first iteration of this exercise, which started in Bihar, was challenged before the apex court.
A Bench which also comprised Justice Joymalya Bagchi refused to stay the exercise, but passed a few orders to ensure that there is no unfair deletion of voters from the rolls. This included orders allowing Aadhaar as a proof of identity.
Later, petitions challenging SIR in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala also came to be filed. All these petitions are still pending before the Court.
Legal aid
As head of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), Justice Kant has taken steps to advance the provision of legal aid to convicts by identifying them and making legal aid lawyers, including Senior Advocates, available to defend them in Court.
During his term, NALSA also launched the Veer Parivaar Sahayata Yojana, a structured legal aid initiative for members of the Armed Forces and their families.
Justice Kant has also encouraged young lawyers to embrace doing pro bono and legal aid work, saying that success in law is not measured merely by financial gains but by "ethical weight".
Legal education
Justice Kant has stated in open court that the Bar Council of India ought to refrain from interfering in matters of legal education and leave such aspects to academicians and jurists.
Legal profession
As a first generation lawyer himself, Justice Kant has openly stated that in his opinion, it is not necessary to have any special background or influential contacts to have a successful career as a lawyer. Only hard work and outstanding performance in court matters, according to the new CJI.
The judge added that the focus for lawyers should remain on working hard.
"Work hard, and leave the rest to fate. It is not necessary for a special background to be successful in this profession," Justice Kant said in 2023.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Whether it is by virtue of his position as Chairperson of the Supreme Court Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee (MCPC) or not, Justice Kant has been a vocal advocate of mediation. He has also opined that India can be positioned as a global arbitration hub by providing cost-effective solutions.
He has called for immediate development of multilingual resources to make mediation more accessible and proposed introducing mediation as a standalone subject in law schools, separate from traditional ADR courses.
He has also raised concerns regarding provisions in the Mediation Act, 2023, which allow challenges to mediated settlements.
Collegium
Justice Kant has generally supported the Collegium system, highlighting its role in safeguarding judicial independence. He has even taken an originalist position to defend the system, saying that the Collegium framework was not a later invention but part of the original Constitutional design.
However, Justice Kant has also batted for reforms to make the system more transparent.
“Despite its imperfections, the Collegium remains a crucial institutional safeguard,” he said during an address in the United States earlier this year.
Justice Kant recently also remarked that that while many High Court judges perform exceedingly well, some continue to underperform despite having the ability to do more. The recommendations made by the Collegium under Justice Kant will reveal whether performance is given more weightage than mere seniority for elevation to the Supreme Court.
Environment
With dipping air quality in National Capital Region (NCR) and climate change related disasters occurring across the country, the CJI’s approach to environmental issues becomes increasingly germane.
Justice Kant often harkens to his upbringing in a farming family to defend farmers who engage in stubble burning from being made exclusively responsible for air pollution in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi-NCR. He has instead batted for implementing other measures such as firecracker bans and vehicular emission controls.
"Now it has become a fashion to bash the farmers whether its Delhi government or someone else," he said while considering an air pollution matter in 2021.
Justice Kant has also batted for legislative and institutional level responses to environmental issues, flagging environmental violations by developed countries that send their plastic and clothing waste to developing countries including India.
He has also opined that Article 21 must be interpreted as extending to the preservation of ecological conditions essential for sustaining life.
Artificial Intelligence
Justice Kant has taken a pragmatic approach to the use of AI so far. He has not tried to ban its use in legal practice. He has instead only advised that this "most transformative tool of our generation" be used to bolster human intelligence rather than supplant it.
"Artificial intelligence may assist in researching authorities, generating drafts, or highlighting inconsistencies, but it cannot perceive the tremor in a witness’s voice, the anguish behind a petition, or the moral weight of a decision. Let us be crystal clear: we are not replacing the lawyer or the judge, we are simply augmenting their reach and refining their capacity to serve. Let technology be the guide and the human govern," he said at an event this October.
He has also flagged the weaponisation of AI to target public figures, especially women, through deepfake videos and images, spreading false narratives, threatening human dignity, privacy and public trust.
Presidential reference: Just last week, a Constitution Bench which included Justice Kant opined that no timelines can be prescribed for Governors or the President to act with regard to bills passed by state legislatures. The judgment also held that there can be no deemed assent to such bills on the ground that the Governor or President failed to act within such prescribed timelines. This judgment has reignited the debate surrounding federalism and Governor's role in state affairs.
Minority status of Aligarh Muslim University: Justice Kant dissented from the majority in the Aligarh Muslim University Case, opining that an institution can claim minority status only if it is established and administered by a minority.
Abrogation of Article 370: Justice Kant concurred with the majority in the Constitution Bench judgment upholding the Central government's decision to abrogate of Article 370 following which the State of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into the two Union Territories - Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Citizenship Act, 1955: Justice Kant concurred with the majority in upholding the validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act of 1955, which grants citizenship to Bangladeshi immigrants who entered Assam before March 1971.
Special Intensive Revision (SIR): As mentioned earlier, the Supreme Court is currently seized of petitions challenging SIRs of electoral rolls in Bihar, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala.
Regulation of political parties: A Bench headed by Justice Kant recently issued notice to the ECI on a PIL seeking the framing of rules for the registration and regulation of political parties, aimed at ensuring secularism, transparency and political justice. As per the plea, recent income tax raids exposed bogus political parties engaging in large scale money laundering.
Appointment of Election Commissioners: The apex court is yet to decide on petitions challenging the validity of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service And Term of Office) Act, 2023 (CEC Act) which drew controversy for its omission of the CJI from the panel tasked with selecting the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners.
PMLA judgment review: A Bench headed by Justice Kant is seized of petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as upheld in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v Union of India, especially its reverse burden clause, denial of procedural safeguards like providing accused the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) and stringent bail conditions under Section 45 of the PMLA.
Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025: Earlier this year, the Supreme Court stayed certain provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025. but declined to stay the operation of the entire Act.
The petitions challenging the amendment's validity are finally decided. It is now up to the new CJI to assign the matter to a bench in exercise of his powers as master of the roster.
Sabarimala review: Justice Kant is the only remaining judge in office from among the members of the larger bench which was constituted to review the top court's 2018 judgment, declaring the Sabarimala Temple's practice of excluding women of menstruating age, as unconstitutional. As Justice Kant has declared that he will be reviving pending Constitution Bench matters, this could be one of the cases that may resurface in the next 14 months.