Establishment man: Meet N V Ramana, Chief Justice of India-designate

Ramana is a first-generation lawyer in his family. He became a lawyer in 1983 and a judge in the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2000

Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana (63) will have an 18-month tenure as Chief Justice of India. He takes charge on April 24. Expect no upheavals.

“He’s an establishment man,” says a senior advocate in the Supreme Court, adding hurriedly, lest he be misunderstood “but he does his own thinking — and he puts the law first”.

Ramana is a first-generation lawyer in his family. He did not inherit his father’s practice; nor, indeed, his library. But in his area, he’s not a nobody either: his family belongs to Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna district, the area of influence of the Kamma caste, the powerful