What was the traditional practice for appointing the Chief Justice of India before 1973?
1) Appointing a judge with the longest tenure on the Supreme Court
2) Appointing the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court
3) Appointing a judge with the most legal experience in a High court
4) Appointing the judge favoured by the Prime Minister

Choose the correct answer from the given options:

2

Answer: Appointing the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court
Before 1973, it had been a practice to appoint the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice of India.

Two developments further added to the tension between the judiciary and the executive. Immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision in 1973 in the Keshavananda Bharati case, a vacancy arose for the post of the Chief Justice of India. It had been a practice to appoint the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice. But in 1973, the government set aside the seniority of three judges and appointed Justice A. N. Ray as the Chief Justice of India. The appointment became politically controversial because all the three judges who were superseded had given rulings against the stand of the government. Thus, constitutional interpretations and political ideologies were getting mixed up rapidly. People close to the Prime Minister started talking of the need for a judiciary and the bureaucracy ‘committed’ to the vision of the executive and the legislature. The climax of the confrontation was of course the ruling of the High Court declaring Indira Gandhi’s election invalid.