BALAKRISHNAN was Chief Justice of the Gujarat and Tamil Nadu High Courts till June 2000, when he was elevated to the Supreme Court where he became Chairman of the National Legal Service Authority and the panel to appoint members of the Central Administrative Tribunal.

As the 37th Chief Justice, KG Balakrishnan will get more than three years in office, much longer than his recent predecessors have had. Balakrishnan will be sworn in on January 15, 2007 and will serve till May 12, 2010.

Present CJI YK Sabharwal, who was appointed on the day of the golden jubilee of the Supreme Court, had just about 14 months. His predecessor, Ramesh Chand Lahoti, served for 17 months from June 1, 2004 when he was elevated as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

There have been longer tenures in the past, though. Dr Justice Adarsh Sein Anand, for instance, had a tenure of slightly more than three years, from October 10, 1998 to November 1, 2001. Another former judge, Chief Justice AM Ahmadi too had a similar tenure from October 25, 1994 to March 24, 1997.

Balakrishnan’s rulings are said to reflect a strict legal and constitutional approach based on precedents. A case in point is the Bihar Legislative Assembly one. He dissented from the majority view of the other four judges that the presidential proclamation on May 2005 dissolving the Bihar Legislative Assembly was unconstitutional.

Some of his important judgments include those in the case that involved the constitutional implications of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi deciding to advance Assembly polls, the one on providing free mid-day meals to school children countrywide —he considers it his most satisfying order till date — the case pertaining to admissions to self financing colleges in Kerala that he handled as part of a nine-member constitution bench, among others.

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