20 landmark verdicts delivered by CJI Chandrachud

After a two-year-long stint, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud formally demits the highest judicial office of the country on Sunday.

- AGENCIES

Elevated as an apex court judge on May 13, 2016, he, in his over eight-year-long stint at the Supreme Court, pronounced several landmark judgments.

Article 370 revocation
A 5-judge Constitution Bench, headed by CJI Chandrachud, had upheld the revocation of Article 370, while ordering the Election Commission to take steps to conduct elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly by September 30, 2024.

The bench, also comprising Justices S.K. Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B.R. Gavai, and Surya Kant, had left open the question of whether the Parliament can extinguish the character of statehood by converting a state into one or more Union Territories, but said that "restoration of statehood shall take place at the earliest and as soon as possible".

In May, the apex court dismissed a batch of review pleas filed against the decision.

Same-sex marriage
A 5-judge Constitution bench headed by CJI Chandrachud had declined to read the gender-neutral "person" in place of "male" and "female" existing under the Special Marriage Act. It unanimously agreed that there exists no unqualified right to marriage and accepted the Centre's proposal that a committee, headed by the Cabinet Secretary, be set up to examine what administrative steps could be taken to address basic social benefit concerns relating to same-sex couples.

The bench, also comprising Justices Khanna, Hima Kohli, B.V. Nagarathna, and P.S. Narasimha, left it to the legislature to take a call on enacting the marriage equality law. It had asked the Union and state governments to ensure that the LGBTQ+ community is not discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation and queer individuals are not refused access to any goods or services.

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