India’s 52nd CJI shaped by life, legal experience

Justice Gavai, from a humble upbringing, becomes India's 52nd Chief Justice, advocating for equity in judicial rulings rooted in personal experience.

When justice Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai reflects on his life’s journey – from a hut in Frezarpura in Maharashtra to the grand courtroom of the Supreme Court – he often returns to one defining insight: “If today my son studies in a Delhi’s top school, how can he be equated with a boy who studies in a school like the one I did, in a slum?”

Supreme Court of India

That belief -- deeply personal and firmly constitutional -- shaped his landmark opinion in August 2024, favouring sub-classification within the Scheduled Caste quota. It was an act not just of judicial interpretation but of lived understanding and of acknowledging that even within historically disadvantaged groups, privilege can accrue and reproduce, and equity must evolve to account for it.

On May 14, when justice Gavai is sworn in as the 52nd Chief Justice of India (CJI), he will become only the second from the Dalit community to occupy the highest judicial office in the country. He will demit office on November 23. Yet justice Gavai’s appointment is not merely a matter of identity, but is also the culmination of a career defined by public service, principled grounding, and a judicial outlook shaped by constitutional commitment and social realities.

Born on November 24, 1960, in the Frezarpura locality of Amravati town -- an area dotted with workers’ homes and makeshift huts – justice Gavai was the eldest of three siblings. His father, the late RS Gavai, was a towering figure in Ambedkarite politics and once dreamt of pursuing law himself. The senior Gavai, who went on to serve as the governor of Bihar, Sikkim and Kerala, ensured his children were raised with discipline. His wife Kamaltai, a former schoolteacher, focussed on making young Bhushan learn the value of hard work -- from washing utensils and cooking bhakris (flatbread) to drawing water from borewells after dark.

For much of his childhood, justice Gavai studied at a municipal Marathi-medium school, sitting on floors, often in classes that lacked basic infrastructure. Those early interactions with neighbours of every caste and religion, with economic hardship, and with the quiet resilience of his mother, later found their echo in his judicial temperament: inclusive, empathetic, and quietly assertive. Another inspiration for him was Dr BR Ambedkar, whose legacy he revered not merely in word but in practice.

Law, however, was not his first calling. In his early years, justice Gavai was drawn to politics, and even contemplated contesting elections, before a turning point in the 1990s made him reconsider. After earning a degree in commerce and later law from Amravati University, he began practising in 1985. Over the years, he served as additional public prosecutor and government pleader in the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court. He accepted the government pleaders’ post only on the condition that he would choose his team — two of whom, Bharati Dangre and Anil S Kilor, would go on to become high court judges themselves.

In his judicial career, which spans over two decades across benches in Nagpur, Aurangabad, Panaji and Mumbai, justice Gavai presided over cases that reflected his deep concern for justice. He recalled with emotion the case of a woman who struggled for two decades to get possession of a house she legally owned. His orders finally helped her secure a roof over her head. In another case, involving a mother separated from her infant by an estranged husband, justice Gavai’s intervention brought the child back.

His empathy did not mean any compromise on legal rigour. As a judge of the Supreme Court, he authored or contributed to several landmark rulings. His bench led the way in safeguarding due process in UAPA and PMLA arrests, granting relief in high-profile cases such as those of Newsclick founder Prabir Purkayastha and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia. In another case, he reinforced that demolitions without due process flout the rule of law, reiterating the state’s obligation to act with fairness even when dealing with alleged law-breakers.

In a defining moment last year, justice Gavai delivered a powerful separate opinion as part of the seven-judge bench that upheld the constitutionality of sub-classification within the SC quota. Drawing from personal experience and constitutional principle, he challenged the notion that all beneficiaries of reservation are equally placed -- a position that resonated deeply with those who have long argued that social justice cannot be one-size-fits-all.

In 2023, he was part of the Constitution bench that upheld the abrogation of Article 370, and in 2024, the bench that struck down the opaque electoral bonds scheme. For justice Gavai, the judicial robe never distanced him from his sense of self. “I am not a Supreme Court judge once I step out of the courtroom. I consider myself to be an ordinary citizen,” said the CJI-designate.

That rootedness is partly sustained by his family. His wife, Tejaswini Gavai who stood by him through the years of intense judicial work, and his 14-year-old son,to whom he admits he has not been able to give enough time, have made their share of sacrifices.

When the CJI-designate travelled to remote corners of India to meet people and understand their concerns as the executive chairperson of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), he often spoke of his love for forests, mountains, and open skies. In those vast spaces, perhaps, he found a reflection of his own journey – from a boy in a municipal school who helped his mother cook for visitors, to a jurist who carries that experience into every judgment, ensuring that justice is not abstract, but lived.

As Kamaltai, now 84, gets ready to watch her son’s swearing-in, justice Gavai feels that this is not just the story of a judge. “It’s the story of a boy who was told the sky’s the limit, and who now sits under its full expanse, not as a symbol, but as a sentinel of justice,” justice Gavai said.