What makes CJI-designate Ranjan Gogoi a rebel with a cause

Having declared democracy in danger at a famous press conference in January, his upcoming stint as head of the apex court will be keenly watched for what he does to defend this ideal

The misgivings of the legal profession and the cynics over the past eight months of turmoil in the country’s highest court came to nothing. Despite all the angst following his famous “rebel” press conference with three other judges in January this year, Justice Ranjan Gogoi was not sidelined. Instead, the present Chief Justice Dipak Misra, against whom the protest presser was organised, stuck to convention by elevating the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court to the nation’s highest judicial pedestal. 

This decision, which the government is traditionally bound to accept, exorcised the ghost of two past instances when convention was