The 4 Supreme Court judges who took on the CJI at a historic press conference

For the first time probably in the history of India, four top judges of the Supreme Court addressed a press conference on Friday. The press conference was addressed by Justice Chelameswar and three other judges of the Supreme Court. The unprecedented move to call for a press conference was a decision taken by Justice Chelameswar. The press conference was about events in the collegium of the Supreme Court.

Justice Chelameswar

He is a judge on the Supreme Court of India. He was formerly the Chief Justice of the High Court of Kerala and Guwahati High Court.

According to Op-Ed in The Economic Times: Chelameswar, once a government pleader, was appointed an additional judge in the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 1997. He has been chief justice of both the Guwahati and Kerala high courts where he is perceived as having done exemplary work on the green benches there.

He was made a Supreme Court judge in 2011 after an unexplained delay. This denied him the chance to be chief justice of India. He has delivered several landmark judgements while in the top court.

Justice Madan Lokur

Madan B. Lokur was enrolled at the Bar in 1977 and practiced in the Supreme Court of India and at the Delhi High Court. He qualified the Advocate-on-Record (AoR) examination and was enrolled as an AoR of the Supreme Court in 1981.

He also served as the Editor of Indian Law Review (Delhi Series) from February 1983. Lokur was elevated to the Bench on 19 February 1999. He joined Delhi High Court as an Additional Judge. He was appointed as a Permanent Judge of that High Court on 5 July 1999.

He also functioned as the Acting Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court from 13 February 2010 to 21 May 2010 before being transferred as the Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court from 24 June 2010 to 14 November 2011 and High Court of Andhra Pradesh from 15 November 2011 to 3 June 2012.

He was elevated as Judge of the Supreme Court on 4 June 2012.

Justice Joseph Kurian

In 2000, Joseph was appointed as a judge of the Kerala High Court. In February 2010, he was elevated as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. On 8 March 2013, he became a judge of Supreme Court of India.

He was designated as Senior Advocate in 1996. Joseph has also been Chairman of the Indian Law Institute Kerala Branch, Chairman of Indian Law Reports (Kerala Series) and Executive Member of NUALS (National University of Advanced Legal Studies).

On August 22, 2017, Justice Joseph gave a verdict against the controversial Triple Talaq. In his judgement he said

"I find it extremely difficult to agree with the learned Chief Justice that the practice of triple talaq has to be considered integral to the religious denomination in question and that the same is part of their personal law...."

Justice Ranjan Gogoi

He is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is in line to become the Chief Justice of India in October 2018, succeeding Justice Dipak Misra, as the senior most judge of the Court. He will be the first judge from India's North East to hold that post.

Justice Gogoi was enrolled at the Bar in 1978 and practiced at the Gauhati High Court of which he was made a Permanent Judge on 28 February 2001. He was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 9 September 2010 and became its Chief Justice on 12 February 2011.

He was elevated as Judge of the Supreme Court on 23 April 2012 and will have a tenure of over seven years there. His father Keshab Chandra Gogoi was a former Chief Minister of Assam.

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