NEW DELHI: The newly appointed Chief Justice of India S A Bobde shared the dais in court no. 1 of the Supreme Court with Chief Justice of Jamaica Bryan Sykes and the senior-most judge of Bhutan’s Supreme Court, Justice Kuenlay Tshering, as he presided over the court’s functioning on Monday as CJI for the first time.
Justices Sykes and Tshering observed the court proceedings, especially the format of urgent mentioning of matters before the CJI.Justice Bobde was administered the oath of office by President Ram Nath Kovind earlier in the day. He sat for nearly an hour in the CJI’s courtroom. Bar leaders, led by Supreme Court Bar Association chief senior advocate Rakesh Kumar Khanna, congratulated the CJI.
Bobde will have a tenure of over 17 months and is due to retire on April 23, 2021. He was part of the historic Ayodhya verdict and the nine-judge bench that had held unanimously in August 2017 that Right to Privacy was a fundamental right.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal made the first mentioning before the Bench headed by CJI Bobde. Sibal sought an urgent hearing on his client, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram’s plea, challenging the Delhi High Court order denying him bail. Responding to Sibal’s plea, the CJI said the court would hear Chidambaram’s petition on Tuesday or Wednesday.