Gurugram: When President Droupadi Murmu notified the elevation of Justice Surya Kant as the 53rd Chief Justice of India on 30 October, the news reached his ancestral village of Petwar in Haryana’s Hisar like a late Diwali gift. Within hours, sweets were distributed outside the family home of the man who once sat on the floor of the local government school that didn’t have any benches.
Justice Surya Kant, 63, will take oath as Chief Justice of India at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday, succeeding Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, who retired a day earlier. He will be the first judge from Haryana to occupy the country’s highest judicial office and will serve for just over 14 months until 9 February 2027.
The journey from Petwar, a village off the Hisar-Chandigarh highway, to the Supreme Court encapsulates a story of merit triumphing over modest beginnings. Justice Kant cleared matriculation from the village school, pursued his undergraduate education at Government PG College, Hisar, and earned his LLB from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, in 1984. As a sitting judge, he completed LLM from Kurukshetra University through distance learning in 2011, standing first in the varsity.
First-generation lawyer
“We had no lawyers in our family. He was the first,” his elder brother Rishi Kant, 70, a retired drawing teacher who lives in the old family house, told ThePrint over the phone.
The youngest of five siblings, Justice Kant has three brothers and a sister. His eldest sister Kamla Devi, 74, lives in Jind. Dr Shiv Kant is a pulmonologist in Bhiwani, and Dev Kant (66) retired from the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) as an instructor and settled in Hisar.
Their father Madan Gopal Shastri taught Sanskrit at a government school, and their mother was a homemaker. Justice Kant’s wife, Savita Kant, retired as principal of a government college in Panchkula.
Rishi Kant, recalling a moment from their childhood, told ThePrint that after appearing for his Class 10 examination, Surya Kant went to help with wheat harvesting on the family’s 12-acre land in Petwar. Toiling under the scorching April sun, the student vowed to transform his life through education, so he would never have to work in the fields again.
“I am proud that my younger brother will be occupying the chair of the Chief Justice of India,” Rishi Kant said.
Asked how many family members will travel to Delhi for the oath ceremony, Rishi Kant said all of them have got the invitation for the event. “From the village, I will be going with my wife. My other brothers and sister also plan to go to Delhi with their spouses for the ceremony. The rest will watch it on TV and distribute laddoos here,” he added.
Raj Bahadur Yadav, a retired school principal from Fatehabad, was Surya Kant’s classmate at Government Post Graduate College, Hisar. Yadav recalls meeting Kant for the first time in August 1977 during a Hindi class at Government Post Graduate College, Hisar.
Their teacher had asked students to write an essay on socialist icon Jay Prakash Narayan, and both students’ work was appreciated. Yadav described the young Kant as “a sensible village youth of more than average height, wearing a short-sleeved yellow shirt and trousers with a gentle spark in his eyes and a natural glow on face, oozing simplicity, a great sense of fellow-feeling and generosity.”
“I never saw him assuming the airs and graces of an upper caste youth,” Yadav said, highlighting Justice Kant’s down-to-earth character from his college days.
Yadav recounted how Kant once told him about a rickshaw-puller in Hisar who sang beautifully. When Yadav expressed scepticism, Kant insisted they visit the man. On a cold December evening in 1979, they met the middle-aged rickshaw-puller near a flyover bridge.
The man served them tea and then engaged in a spirited game of ‘Antakshari’, singing Bollywood songs with remarkable skill. According to Yadav, both students were “clearly defeated” by the rickshaw-puller in a two-hour session.
Rapid rise
After one year of practice in Hisar district courts starting in 1984, Justice Kant shifted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh. The move proved transformative.
P.K. Sandhir, a criminal lawyer in Hisar district court who had been practising for nearly a decade when Justice Kant began, said, “In his free time, he would normally come and sit with my father, late Pandit Dev Raj Sandhir, who was also a lawyer, or with late Atma Ram.”
It was obvious from the beginning that Justice Kant, he said, was meant for higher courts.
“When he argued his first major case, everyone was impressed with his preparation and arguments in English language. Most of the lawyers in district courts would argue in Hindi mixed with English words. It was then that my father told him that he is not made for the district court and he should go to Chandigarh (Punjab and Haryana High Court),” Sandhir said.
On this, the criminal lawyer recalled, Justice Kant replied that he doesn’t know anyone there.
“My father took him to Chandigarh and introduced him to late Senior Advocate Arun K. Jain. After this, there was no looking back,” Sandhir said.
Justice Kant started at the High Court in 1985 and within two years, he was handling Advocate Jain’s cases and his own.
“By the 1990s, he was already a name in the legal circles in Chandigarh…And the best thing about him is that he never forgets to mention my father’s gesture of taking him to Chandigarh whenever he comes to the Hisar Bar Association,” Sandhir said.
In July 2000, at 38, Surya Kant became Haryana’s youngest advocate general under the Om Prakash Chautala government.
Sampat Singh, who is based in Hisar and served as finance minister from 2000 to 2005, attributed the appointment to Justice Kant’s “sheer grip over constitutional law and service matters”.
Four years later, at 42, Justice Kant was elevated to the Punjab and Haryana High Court bench, becoming one of the youngest judges appointed to that court. After 14 years there, he served briefly as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court from October 2018 to May 2019 before his elevation to the Supreme Court in May 2019.
Justice Kant’s 21 years of experience across high courts and the Supreme Court are unusually extensive for a Chief Justice; many in the past were directly elevated to the top court.
His judgments have blended constitutional rigour with empathy—from granting prisoners the right to family life under Article 21 to recognising homemakers’ economic contribution. He was part of the bench that directed the formation of an expert committee to come up with guidelines to protect domestic workers.
Other rulings on national matters in which he was involved include upholding the Centre’s move to withdraw special status for Jammu & Kashmir, examining allegations linked to Pegasus spyware and pushing for electoral transparency ahead of Bihar elections this year.
Also Read: CJI Gavai: The Ambedkarite judge who listened keenly & wrote simply
Compassion & humility
Subhash Godara, additional advocate general of Punjab and Justice Kant’s junior from university days, said he never saw him without a book in hand.
“Another notable aspect of Justice Surya Kant’s personality is that he prepared very well, whether it was hearing a case or attending an event as a guest where he has to deliver a lecture,” Godara said.
He recalled seeing Justice Kant taking walks during his high court tenure. “I would often notice him walking on the side lanes of Sukhna Lake in the morning in Chandigarh when he was at the High Court since the main lane is always full of morning walkers. I never noticed him taking security along during the walks.”
Godara, who practised in the Punjab and Haryana High Court where Justice Kant served as a judge from 2000 to 2018, spoke of his treatment of junior lawyers.
“The best thing about him as a judge was that he was very cooperative towards junior lawyers. If he noticed a junior lawyer fumble during arguments, he would never show any hurry and rush to comment on his or her preparedness for the case. He would rather tell them softly to take their time,” he said.
Sandhir, too, shared an anecdote on Justice Kant’s personal touch.
When his wife underwent knee replacement surgery in Delhi in December 2021, Justice Surya Kant, then in the Supreme Court, stayed in regular touch about her well-being. While she was still in hospital, the Hisar Bar Association invited the judge for a visit.
Sandhir rushed to Hisar to receive him with other Bar members. “When he noticed me, the first words he uttered, ‘Aap yahan kya kar rahe hain? Aap ko toh Delhi mein hona chahiye tha (what are you doing here? You should have been in Delhi),’” Sandhir said.
Sampat Singh noted that Justice Kant was able to maintain harmony even as an advocate general.
“Normally, the Legal Remembrance, who is also the Legal Secretary to the government, and the Advocate General, are at odds over issues. LR is a senior district judge, while AG is a government appointee. Many governments prefer to take AG’s advice on matters, fearing adverse opinion from LRs, which eventually irks the LRs. During Surya Kant’s tenure as AG, there was not a single instance of tussle between the two legal bosses. He maintained such nice relations with the LR that things moved smoothly,” Singh said.
Amit Rana, vice-chairman of the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, emphasised Justice Kant’s bond with the fraternity. “He never forgot his roots. Even after he was elevated to the bench, he remained accessible, patient and genuinely interested in the concerns of advocates. His courtroom was never intimidating — it was a space where young lawyers felt encouraged to present their arguments and senior advocates found a judge who truly listened.”
He noted that Justice Kant’s affection for the Bar was evident not just in words but in his judgments on legal aid, his efforts to improve Bar associations, and the landmark 2024 order that reserved one-third seats for women in Bar bodies.
“For us, in the legal fraternity, Justice Surya Kant personifies what a judge should be: learned yet humble, firm yet empathetic, reformist yet respectful of precedent,” Rana said.
He added that Justice Kant’s elevation to the office of Chief Justice of India is “not just Haryana’s pride, it is a moment of joy for every advocate who has appeared before him and experienced his fairness, patience, and judicial wisdom”.
Another example of his humility, Rishi Kant said, was Justice Kant’s fulfilment of a family legacy.
The family maintains a trust, named Pandit Ram Prasad Atma Ram after Justice Kant’s grandfather and paternal uncle. Since their father’s death in 2018, the trust has been awarding cash prizes to students achieving the top three positions in classes 10 and 12 in Petwar’s two schools. “Surya Kant makes it a point to be in the village to attend that function every year,” Rishi Kant said.
Grand celebration
The Hisar Bar Association has announced a grand programme on 24 November — a havan at 9.30 am, prasad made from 101 kg of laddoos, a blood donation camp, and a free medical check-up camp.
Nearly 130 lawyers from Hisar are expected to be travelling to Delhi for Justice Kant’s oath ceremony.
“It is a big day for the members of the Hisar District Bar Association. A man who used to sit with them once will be sworn in as the next Chief Justice of India,” Godara said, adding: “For us, this is not just the rise of a judge — it is proof that a boy from a village school like us can reach the very top on sheer merit.”
A high court source in Chandigarh said most judges and hundreds of advocates, too, were planning to travel to Delhi. “23 November is a Sunday and 24 is a holiday for Guru Teg Bahadur Shaheedi Diwas. It’s perfect timing,” the source said.
Justice Surya Kant, he said, “earned a lot of respect and adulation” at the Punjab and Haryana High Court. “Everyone wants to be a witness to his oath ceremony.”
Judges from Himachal Pradesh High Court, where he served as Chief Justice for less than a year, are also expected.
Godara said nearly 200 passes would be reserved for family and friends.
“We know all can’t be accommodated in the Gantantra Mandap of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Arrangements have been made in the Supreme Court building, where those who don’t make it to the ceremony can watch the proceedings of the oath live on TV,” he said.
In Petwar, meanwhile, villagers are busy making more laddoos to distribute on Monday.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)