List of Chief Justices of India

List of Chief Justices

Federal Court of India (1937-1950)

The Federal Court came into being on 1 October 1937. The seat of the court was the Chamber of Princes in the Parliament building in Delhi. It began with a Chief Justice and two puisne judges. The first Chief Justice was Sir Maurice Gwyer and the other two judges were Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman and M. R. Jayakar. It functioned until the establishment of the Supreme Court of India on 28 January 1950.

Number	Name	Period of office		Length of term (days)	Bar	Appointed by
1	Sir Maurice Gwyer	1 October 1937	25 April 1943‡		Inner Temple	The Marquess of Linlithgow
Acting	Sir Srinivas Vardachariar	25 April 1943	7 June 1943
2	Sir Patrick Spens	7 June 1943	14 August 1947		Inner Temple
3	Sir H. J. Kania	14 August 1947	26 January 1950		Bombay High Court	The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma

‡ – Date of Resignation

Supreme Court of India

Since the birth of the Republic of India on 26 January 1950, 43 people have served as the Chief Justice of India (CJI). While H. J. Kania is the inaugural CJI, the current incumbent is T. S. Thakur who was appointed as Chief Justice of India on 03.12.2015. Justice Y. V. Chandrachud is the longest serving Chief Justice (February 1978 - July 1985).

Number	Name	Period of office		Length of term (days)	Bar	Appointed by
1	H. J. Kania	26 January 1950	6 November 1951‡‡		Bombay High Court	Rajendra Prasad
2	M. Patanjali Sastri	7 November 1951	3 January 1954		Madras High Court
3	Mehr Chand Mahajan	4 January 1954	22 December 1954		East Punjab High Court
4	Bijan Kumar Mukherjea	23 December 1954	31 January 1956‡		Calcutta High Court
5	Sudhi Ranjan Das	1 February 1956	30 September 1959	1337	Calcutta High Court
6	Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha	1 October 1959	31 January 1964	1583	Patna High Court
7	Prahlad Balacharya Gajendragadkar	1 February 1964	15 March 1966		Bombay High Court	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
8	Amal Kumar Sarkar	16 March 1966	29 June 1966		Calcutta High Court
9	Koka Subba Rao	30 June 1966	11 April 1967‡		Madras High Court
10	Kailas Nath Wanchoo	12 April 1967	24 February 1968		Allahabad High Court
11	Mohammad Hidayatullah	25 February 1968	16 December 1970	1025	Bombay High Court	Zakir Hussain
12	Jayantilal Chhotalal Shah	17 December 1970	21 January 1971		Bombay High Court	Varahagiri Venkata Giri
13	Sarv Mittra Sikri	22 Jan 1971	25 April 1973		Lahore High Court
14	Ajit Nath Ray	26 April 1973	27 January 1977	1372	Calcutta High Court
15	Mirza Hameedullah Beg	28 January 1977	21 February 1978		Allahabad High Court	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
16	Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud	22 February 1978	11 July 1985	2696	Bombay High Court	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
17	Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati	12 July 1985	20 December 1986		Gujarat High Court	Gyani Zail Singh
18	Raghunandan Swarup Pathak	21 December 1986	18 June 1989‡		Allahabad High Court
19	Engalaguppe Seetharamiah Venkataramiah	19 June 1989	17 December 1989		Karnataka High Court	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
20	Sabyasachi Mukharji	18 December 1989	25 September 1990‡‡		Calcutta High Court
21	Ranganath Misra	26 September 1990	24 November 1991		Orissa High Court
22	Kamal Narain Singh	25 November 1991	12 December 1991		Allahabad High Court
23	Madhukar Hiralal Kania	13 December 1991	17 November 1992		Bombay High Court
24	Lalit Mohan Sharma	18 November 1992	11 February 1993		Patna High Court	Shankar Dayal Sharma
25	Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah	12 February 1993	24 October 1994		Karnataka High Court
26	Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi	25 October 1994	24 March 1997		Gujarat High Court
27	Jagdish Sharan Verma	25 March 1997	17 January 1998		Madhya Pradesh High Court
28	Madan Mohan Punchhi	18 January 1998	9 October 1998		Punjab and Haryana High Court	Kocheril Raman Narayanan
29	Adarsh Sein Anand	10 October 1998	11 January 2001		Jammu and Kashmir High Court
30	Sam Piroj Bharucha	11 January 2001	6 May 2002		Bombay High Court
31	Bhupinder Nath Kirpal	6 May 2002	8 November 2002		Delhi High Court
32	Gopal Ballav Pattanaik	8 November 2002	19 December 2002		Orissa High Court	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
33	V. N. Khare	19 Dec 2002	2 May 2004		Allahabad High Court
34	S. Rajendra Babu	2 May 2004	1 June 2004		Karnataka High Court
35	Ramesh Chandra Lahoti	1 June 2004	1 November 2005		Madhya Pradesh High Court
36	Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal	1 November 2005	13 January 2007		Delhi High Court
37	K. G. Balakrishnan	13 January 2007	11 May 2010	1214	Kerala High Court
38	S. H. Kapadia	12 May 2010	28 Sep 2012		Bombay High Court	Pratibha Patil
39	Altamas Kabir	29 September 2012	18 July 2013		Calcutta High Court	Pranab Mukherjee
40	P. Sathasivam	19 July 2013	26 April 2014		Madras High Court
41	Rajendra Mal Lodha	27 April 2014	27 September 2014		Rajasthan High Court
42	H. L. Dattu	28 September 2014	2 December 2015		Karnataka High Court
43	T. S. Thakur	3 December 2015	Incumbent		Jammu and Kashmir High Court

Notes

• ^‡ - Date of Resignation
• ^‡‡ - Date of Death