How many Supreme Court judges are related to former judges? Here's a closer look

Justice Sanjiv Khanna retired as Chief Justice of India on May 13. His father, Justice Hans Raj Khanna, was a Supreme Court judge during the Emergency.

Khanna has been replaced by Justice BR Gavai as the new CJI. Justice Gavai took the oath of office on May 14. Gavai’s father was a politician.

32 Supreme Court Judges

Currently, there are 32 judges in the Supreme Court, including CJI Gavai. Of these, at least 11 Judges are closely related to former judges. About 10 SC judges had fathers who were lawyers.

Among the existing SC judges, Justice Manoj Misra’s grandfather and father were both prominent lawyers in the Allahabad High Court, according to a recent report in The Print. Justice Misra was elevated as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India on February 06, 2023.

Justice Misra’s two sons, Raghuvansh Misra and Devansh Misra, are advocates. Raghuvansh is married to Kalpana Sinha, the daughter of former Allahabad High Court judge Justice Vipin Sinha, whose father, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha, delivered the famous Allahabad High Court judgment that invalidated the election of then prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.

The Lineage Details

There are other examples. Justice BV Nagarathna is in line to become the CJI in 2027. Her father was the former Chief Justice of India, Justice ES Venkataramiah.

• Justice Bela M Trivedi retires this week from the Supreme Court of India. Her father was in judicial services, too.
• Justice PS Narasimha's father, Justice Kodanda Ramaiah, was a judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

• Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia's father was a judge of the Allahabad High Court.
• Justice Dipankar Datta's father was former Calcutta HC Judge, Late Justice SK Datta.
• Justice Pankaj Mithal's father, Justice Narendra Nath Mitha, was the judge of Allahabad High Court
• Justice Sandeep Mehta is related to former SC judge Justice GS Singhvi.
• Justice Prasanna Bhalachandra Varale's father was also a judge at the Bombay High Court
• Justice N Koitiswar Singh's father, Late Justice N Ibotombi Singh, worked at the Gauhati High Court.
• Justice Abhay S Oka's father, Shreeniwas W Oka, was a lawyer in Thane

Legal Background

• Justice Vikram Nath began his career as a third-generation lawyer, while Justice MM Sindresh's father VK Muthusumy, was a senior advocate in Madras.
• Justice JB Pardiwala's great-grandfather, Navrojji Bhikhaji, practised in 1894 at Valsad.
• Just Sanjay Kumar's father P Ramachandra Reddy, is a former Advocate General of Andhra Pradesh.
• Justice Manoj Misra started as a third-generation lawyer, while Justice PK Mishra's father was also a lawyer.
• Justice KV Viswanathan's father has been a public prosecutor in Coimbatore while Justice Ujjal Bhuyan's father SN Bhuyan was a senior advocate in Assam.
• Justice Joymalya Bagchi's father was also an advocate.

Non-legal backgrounds

• CJI Justice BR Gavai comes from a non-legal background. His father was a politician. Justice Gavai's father, Ramakrishna Suryabhan Gavai, was a well-known Ambedkarite leader and founder of the Republican Party of India. His followers and admirers fondly called him Dadasaheb.

A Lok Sabha MP from Amravati, Ramakrishna Gavai, served as Governor of Bihar, Sikkim, and Kerala between 2006 and 2011, when the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre.

• Justice SC Sharma's father, Dr BN Sharma, was a veteran agriculturalist who taught at Jabalpur University.

-Justice R Mahadevan's father was a Tamil writer.

-Justice Manmohan's father was a bureaucrat-turned-politician Jagmogan. After working with the Congress party, Jagmohan joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1995. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and Goa, as the 5th Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, and for three terms as Member of Parliament for New Delhi. In the cabinet, he served as Union Minister for Urban Development and Tourism.