India's 52nd CJI shaped by life, legal 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?"

- Utkarsh Anand

NEW DELHI:

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.