Overview
- President Droupadi Murmu will administer the oath at Rashtrapati Bhavan on November 24 as he succeeds Justice B. R. Gavai, with a tenure running until February 9, 2027.
- He identified reducing case backlogs across all courts as his foremost priority and said mediation would be implemented more widely, noting that any use of AI should be limited to procedural tasks.
- He announced plans to constitute five-, seven- and nine-judge Constitution Benches in the coming weeks to hear important references pending for years.
- Official NJDG data cited in coverage put pending cases at roughly 5.29 crore nationwide, including about 4.65 crore in district courts, 63.3 lakh in High Courts and around 87,000 in the Supreme Court.
- The first CJI from Haryana, he has served on benches dealing with the Article 370 verdict, the pause on the sedition law, the Pegasus inquiry and electoral-roll transparency, with reports also indicating an unusually large foreign judicial presence expected at the oath ceremony.