Chief Justices Of India - List of all Chief Justices of India

The Chief Justice of India is the highest-ranking officer of the Indian judiciary. Each CJI brings their own unique perspective and judicial philosophy to the role. The CJI assigns cases are constitute constitutional benches for important legal issues.

The Chief Justice of India plays an essential role in the functioning of the judiciary. Below is a comprehensive list of all Chief Justices of India from 1950 to the present.

List of all the Chief Justices of India

Chief Justice of India is appointed from among the senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. Here’s the list of the Chief Justices of India from 1950 to present. The list includes:

No.	Name	Date of Appointment	Held Office Till
1	Hon’ble Justice Harilal Jekisundas Kania	26/01/1950	06/11/1951
2	Hon’ble Justice M. Patanjali Sastri	07/11/1951	03/01/1954
3	Hon’ble Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan	04/01/1954	22/12/1954
4	Hon’ble Justice Bijan Kumar Mukherjea	23/12/1954	31/01/1956
5	Hon’ble Justice Sudhi Ranjan Das	01/02/1956	30/09/1959
6	Hon’ble Justice Bhuvneshwar Prasad Sinha	01/10/1959	31/01/1964
7	Hon’ble Justice P.B. Gajendragadkar	01/02/1964	15/03/1966
8	Hon’ble Justice A.K. Sarkar	16/03/1966	29/06/1966
9	Hon’ble Justice K. Subba Rao	30/06/1966	11/04/1967
10	Hon’ble Justice K.N. Wanchoo	12/04/1967	24/02/1968
11	Hon’ble Justice M. Hidayatullah	25/02/1968	16/12/1970
12	Hon’ble Justice J.C. Shah	17/12/1970	21/01/1971
13	Hon’ble Justice S.M. Sikri	22/01/1971	25/04/1973
14	Hon’ble Justice A.N. Ray	26/04/1973	28/01/1977
15	Hon’ble Justice M. Hameedullah Beg	29/01/1977	21/02/1978
16	Hon’ble Justice Y.V. Chandrachud	22/02/1978	11/07/1985
17	Hon’ble Justice P.N. Bhagwati	12/07/1985	20/12/1986
18	Hon’ble Justice R.S. Pathak	21/12/1986	18/06/1989
19	Hon’ble Justice E.S. Venkataramiah	19/06/1989	17/12/1989
20	Hon’ble Justice Sabyasachi Mukherjee	18/12/1989	25/09/1990
21	Hon’ble Justice Ranganath Misra	25/09/1990	24/11/1991
22	Hon’ble Justice K.N. Singh	25/11/1991	12/12/1991
23	Hon’ble Justice M.H. Kania	13/12/1991	17/11/1992
24	Hon’ble Justice L.M. Sharma	18/11/1992	11/02/1993
25	Hon’ble Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah	12/02/1993	24/10/1994
26	Hon’ble Justice A.M. Ahmadi	25/10/1994	24/03/1997
27	Hon’ble Justice J.S. Verma	25/03/1997	17/01/1998
28	Hon’ble Justice M.M. Punchhi	18/01/1998	09/10/1998
29	Hon’ble Dr. Justice A.S. Anand	10/10/1998	31/10/2001
30	Hon’ble Justice S.P. Bharucha	01/11/2001	05/05/2002
31	Hon’ble Justice B.N. Kirpal	06/05/2002	07/11/2002
32	Hon’ble Justice G.B. Pattanaik	08/11/2002	18/12/2002
33	Hon’ble Justice V.N. Khare	19/12/2002	01/05/2004
34	Hon’ble Justice S. Rajendra Babu	02/05/2004	31/05/2004
35	Hon’ble Justice R.C. Lahoti	01/06/2004	31/10/2005
36	Hon’ble Justice Y.K. Sabharwal	01/11/2005	13/01/2007
37	Hon’ble Justice K.G. Balakrishnan	14/01/2007	12/05/2010
38	Hon’ble Justice S.H. Kapadia	12/05/2010	28/09/2012
39	Hon’ble Justice Altamas Kabir	29/09/2012	18/07/2013
40	Hon’ble Justice P. Sathasivam	19/07/2013	26/04/2014
41	Hon’ble Justice R. M. Lodha	27/04/2014	27/09/2014
42	Hon’ble Justice H.L. Dattu	28/09/2014	02/12/2015
43	Hon’ble Justice T. S. Thakur	03/12/2015	03/01/2017
44	Hon’ble Jagdish Singh Khehar	04/01/2017	27/08/2017
45	Hon’ble Justice Dipak Misra	28/08/2017	02/10/2018
46	Hon’ble Ranjan Gogoi	03/10/2018	17/11/2019
47	Hon’ble Sharad Arvind Bobde	18/11/2019	23/04/2021
48	Hon’ble Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana	24/04/2021	26/08/2022
49	Hon’ble UU Lalit	27/08/2022	08/11/2022
50	Hon’ble DY Chandrachud	09/11/2022	10/11/2024
51	Hon’ble Justice Sanjiv Khanna	11/11/24	13/05/25
52	Hon’ble Justice B R Gavai	14/05/25	23/11/25
53	Hon’ble Justice Surya Kant	24/11/25	09/02/26

Since its establishment in 1950, the Supreme Court of India has been led by 53 Chief Justices. The CJI holds the critical responsibility of upholding the principles of fair and impartial justice.