JUSTICE NV Ramana took oath as the 48th Chief Justice of India on Saturday (24). He will hold the post for sixteen months, until August 26, 2022.
Justice Ramana succeeds Justice S A Bobde who demitted office on April 23.
Indian president Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath at a brief ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Vice president M Venkaiah Naidu, prime minister Narendra Modi and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad were also present at the event.
Justice Ramana took the oath in English in the name of God.He was appointed as the chief justice of India on April 6.
Born on August 27, 1957, in Ponnavaram village of Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district, Justice Ramana's parents Nuthalapati Ganapathi Rao and Sarojini were agriculturists. Although he briefly worked as a journalist for Telugu newspaper Eenadu, as a first generation lawyer, he enrolled as an advocate and set up practice in Vijayawada in 1983.
He subsequently moved to Hyderabad and later served as additional advocate general of Andhra Pradesh.
He was appointed as a permanent judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on June 27, 2000, and functioned as acting Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court from March 10, 2013 to May 20, 2013.
Justice Ramana was elevated as the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court on September 2, 2013 and was appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court on February 17, 2014.
During his tenure in the Supreme Court, Justice Ramana has been a part of many significant rulings, including those on setting up of special courts for fast-tracking criminal cases against MPs and MLAs; bringing the CJI’s office amenable to the Right to Information Act; and, lifting Internet restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir, reported the Indian Express.
He is one of the few judges who displays his nameplate outside his official residence in Telugu, his mother tongue. Incidentally, Justice Ramana is only the second CJI from Andhra Pradesh after Justice K Subba Rao who was Chief Justice between 1966-67.
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event