India has a new Chief Justice. Justice Tirath Singh Thakur sworn in as the 43rd Chief Justice Of India by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday.
But what do you really know about India’s top judge? Here’s what you should know about the 63-year-old judge:
As a Supreme Court judge, he headed the bench which had delivered the verdict to reform Indian cricket board BCCI in the wake of allegations of betting and spot-fixing scandal in the Indian Premier League .
He headed the bench which ordered a CBI probe into the multi-crore chit fund scam in eastern India, also known as Saradha scam.
He was also hearing petitions in the multi-crore rupee NRHM scam, in which ex-UP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha is also an accused. Other politicians and bureaucrats are also accused of siphoning funds from the central government scheme.
He is the son of former Deputy Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Devi Das Thakur, a well known jurist and judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. He enrolled as a pleader in the state in October 1972, and joined the chamber of his father.
He was designated as a senior advocate in 1990. On February 16, 1994, he was appointed as an additional judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and transferred as a judge in the Karnataka High Court in March 1994.
He was appointed as a permanent judge in September 1995 and transferred to the Delhi High Court in July 2004.
Justice Thakur was appointed acting Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court on April 9, 2008. On August 11, 2008, he took over as Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court and assumed charge on November 17, 2009.