By IANS,
New Delhi: Justice Sarosh Homi Kapadia Wednesday became the 38th chief justice of India.
Chief Justice Kapadia was administered the oath of office by President Pratibha Patil at a glittering ceremony in the Ashoka Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
He will preside over the Supreme Court till Sep 29, 2012. Born Sep 29, 1947, Chief Justice Kapadia was elevated to the apex court Dec 18, 2003.
During the ceremony, Chief Justice Kapadia’s wife and family members looked on as he took the oath of office before the president.
Vice President M. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, his cabinet colleagues, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, outgoing Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and judges of the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court were present on the occasion.
Attorney General Goolam E. Vahanvati and Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam too were present.
After the ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the new Chief Justice’s wife visited the Supreme Court where she was seated in the visitors’ gallery of court number one whose proceedings were presided over by Chief Justice Kapadia.
Chief Justice Kapadia who is known for his knowledge of taxation and commercial laws has repeatedly said in the recent past that judges at all level should be abreast of the taxation and commercial laws.
He said that in the existing global environment the knowledge of commercial and economic laws was a pre-requisite of good and competent judges and lawyers.
He had expressed apprehensions that not having trained legal human resource in this area would amount to conceding this space to foreign law firms.
The 62-year-old chief justice, who has been associated with 771 judgments, has many challenges at hand in his capacity as the head of Indian judiciary. One of them is the tricky question of whether the office of the Chief Justice is covered under the Right to Information Act.
Chief Justice Kapadia’s predecessor had consistently maintained that he would not divulge certain information that concerned others and was confidential in nature.
The former CJI too had resisted moves to divulge details about the proceedings of the apex court’s collegium, a panel of judges that deals with issues related to judicial appointments and issue related to judicial misconduct.
Justice Kapadia is known to stress on ethics and integrity of judges.
At a recent public function, he said that “integrity is his only asset”.
“It is easy to be popular but to be correct is difficult,” he said.