Justice H L Dattu, who has been heading the bench monitoring probe into the 2G scam, was today sworn in as the next Chief Justice of India by President Pranab Mukherjee and will have a tenure of 14 months. 63-year-old Justice Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu, the senior-most Supreme Court judge, took oath at a brief ceremony held at the chandeliered Durbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhawan. He will have a tenure of 14 months and will retire on 2 December 2015. Vice President Hamid Ansari, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien, Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, M Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar and BJP veteran L K Advani were among those present at the ceremony.
‘I will sit as a common man on the Bench,’ was how the new Chief Justice of India (CJI) HL Dattu described his job as the head of the judiciary.
Justice Dattu, who was sworn in as the 42nd CJI, said the job of the apex court judge is very responsible as every case at the top court is a ‘serious case’ for citizens.
‘At the end of the day it is the last court of the country. Whether it is a judge or the people we give lot of attention as we know how much citizens pay attention,’ he said in an informal interaction with legal reporters.
The CJI said work load in the apex court has been on the rise and that calls that ‘we have to be more responsible’.
‘Be it a bail matter or that of an immovable property or else we have to be more responsible,’ he said.
Justice Dattu, who is handling the case relating to a plea for keeping the CBI Director Ranjit Sinha away from the 2G spectrum scam probe, for his alleged nexus with high- profile accused, said ‘this is a court which makes no distinction between common man and others’.
As a CJI, Justice Dattu, who will be heading a bench dealing with the issues arising out of bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and creation of new state of Telangana, said as a judge of the top court one has to work for around 16 hours a day and for him the best stress buster is ‘carnatic music and usual dose of south Indian coffee’.