New Delhi
In the new year 2025, the Supreme Court will work under the leadership of three Chief Justices. This year, seven judges including two Chief Justices will retire. The current Chief Justice Justice Sanjiv Khanna will retire on May 13, 2025. Justice Khanna came to the Supreme Court from Delhi High Court on 18 January 2019. His tenure as Chief Justice will be from 11 November 2024 to 13 May 2025.
After CJI Khanna, Justice BR Gavai will become the Chief Justice. He will remain on this post for the next six months i.e. till 23rd November. Surya Kant will become the third Chief Justice this year. His tenure will be for about one and a quarter years till February 2027.
The other five judges who will retire this year in 2025 include Justice C.T. Ravi Kumar is the first. He will retire on January 5, 2025 after completing a tenure of more than three years. Justice Ravi Kumar came to the Supreme Court from Kerala High Court on August 31, 2021. After this, Justice Hrishikesh Roy will retire on January 31 after completing more than four years of service.
Justice Hrishikesh Roy was the Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court and then Kerala High Court. Justice Roy came to the Supreme Court on September 23, 2019.
Justice Abhay Srinivas Oak will retire on May 24, 2025 after completing more than three years of service. He became the judge of Bombay High Court and then in 2019 he was made the Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court. Justice Oak came to the Supreme Court on 31 August 2021. Justice Bela Madhurya Trivedi will retire on June 9, 2025, the next month after Justice Oak’s retirement. She came to the Supreme Court from Gujarat High Court on 31 August 2021.
After this, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia will retire on 9 August 2025. He was appointed Chief Justice of Guwahati High Court in January 2021 from Uttarakhand High Court. Justice Dhulia came to the Supreme Court from there on May 9, 2022.
After this, Justice B.R. took over as Chief Justice. Gavai will retire on November 23, 2025. Justice Gavai came to the Supreme Court from Bombay High Court on May 24, 2019. He will become the Chief Justice in May and will lead the country’s highest judiciary for more than six months.
How many Supreme Court judges will retire in 2025?
Justice CT Ravikumar
Justice CT Ravikumar will be the first to retire in the year 2025. He started serving as a judge in the Supreme Court on 31 August 2021. Justice CT Ravikumar is retiring this week on January 5.
He has held several key positions including Executive Chairman of the Kerala State Legal Services Authority, Chairman of the Kerala Judicial Academy and Chairman of the Kerala State Mediation and Conciliation Centre. Some of his important decisions as a judge include important decisions on matters related to compliance with the POCSO Act, the impact of election promises on the government’s finances and the interpretation of Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code in the Gurmail Singh case. In recent decisions (2024), he has taken important decisions on juvenile justice timelines and child custody cases.
Justice Hrishikesh Roy
Justice Hrishikesh Roy will be the second Supreme Court judge when he retires this year. January 31 will be his last day in the Supreme Court. Before this he was working as Chief Justice in Kerala High Court.
Chief Justice Sanjeev Khanna
Chief Justice Sanjeev Khanna will retire in May this year. He was promoted from Delhi High Court to the Supreme Court in the year 2019. In November last year, Sanjeev Khanna became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He played an important role in a historic 7 judge bench decision. In this decision, the law on unsealed arbitration agreements was clarified.
As a judge, Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna was involved in an important constitutional bench decision in the Shilpa Shailesh vs. Varun Srinivasan case (2023). In this decision, a valid ground for divorce was explained under Article 142. It was decided in this that ‘when there is no scope left for union in a marriage’ then it can be considered a ground for divorce. Furthermore, in the case Anna Mathews v. Supreme Court of India (2023), he had defined the important distinction between eligibility and suitability in judicial appointments. While ruling that eligibility is subject to judicial review, suitability is outside its scope.
Justice Abhay Srinivas Oka
Justice Abhay Srinivas Oka will also retire in May. May 24 will be his last day in the Supreme Court. Justice Abhay was a judge in the Bombay High Court, after which he became the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. In the year 2021, Justice Abhay became a judge in the Supreme Court.
Justice Bela M Trivedi
Justice Bela M Trivedi will also retire this year. June 9, 2025 will be his last working day in the Supreme Court. Justice Bela became the judge of the Supreme Court in August 2021, before this she had been a judge in the Gujarat High Court.
Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia
Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia will retire on 9 August 2025. On May 9, 2022, he took oath as a judge in the Supreme Court. Before this he had been a judge in Uttarakhand High Court. He has also been the Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court from the year 2021 to May 2022.
Justice BR Gavai
Justice BR Gavai will retire from the Supreme Court on November 23 this year. He will replace Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna before his retirement in May 2025. BR Gavai was part of the bench that heard the contempt case against advocate Prashant Bhushan (2020) and imposed a symbolic fine of Rs 1, stressing the importance of maintaining judicial dignity. Apart from this, BR Gavai had given an important decision on the reservation policy in the Pattali Makkal Katchi case (2022). He had ruled against the Tamil Nadu government’s 10.5% reservation for the Vanniyar community due to its reliance on old data.
Justice BR Gavai is considered an expert in the philosophy related to justice. He once said, practice of law is an eternal process of learning and one should continue learning till the end of one’s career. The day one decides to stop learning is the last day.”
