JUDGES from India

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Indian Judges of all time. This list of famous Indian Judges is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Fathima Beevi (1927 - 2023)

With an HPI of 49.45, Fathima Beevi is the most famous Indian Judge.  Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages on wikipedia.

M. Fathima Beevi (30 April 1927 – 23 November 2023) was an Indian judge who was a justice of the Supreme Court of India. Appointed to the apex Court in 1989, she became the first female judge to be a part of the Supreme Court of India, and the first Muslim woman to be appointed to any of the higher judiciaries in the country. On her retirement from the court, she served as a member of the National Human Rights Commission and later as the Governor of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu from 1997 to 2001. In 2023, she was honoured with Kerala Prabha Award, the second-highest honour given by the Government of Kerala. In the 2024 honours list, she was posthumously awarded the Padma Bhushan.

2. Anna Chandy (1905 - 1996)

With an HPI of 44.09, Anna Chandy is the 2nd most famous Indian Judge.  Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Justice Anna Chandy (1905–1996), also known as Anna Chandi, was the first female judge (1937) and then High Court judge (1959) in India. She was, in fact, one of the first female judges in the British Empire next to Emily Murphy.

3. Ranjan Gogoi (1954 - )

With an HPI of 36.93, Ranjan Gogoi is the 3rd most famous Indian Judge.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Ranjan Gogoi (born 18 November 1954) is an Indian former advocate and judge who served as the 46th Chief Justice of India from 2018 to 2019, having previously served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India from 2012 to 2018. He is currently a Member of the Rajya Sabha, having been nominated by President Ram Nath Kovind on 16 March 2020. Gogoi served as a judge in the Gauhati High Court from 2001 to 2010, and then was transferred as a judge to the Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2010 to 2011 where he later was the Chief Justice from 2011 to 2012. He is also a member of the Committee on External Affairs in the Rajya Sabha. Born and raised in Dibrugarh, Gogoi is from a political family and descends from the Ahom dynasty. His maternal grandparents were both state legislators, and his grandmother, Padma Kumari Gohain, was one of the first female MLAs and one of the first female ministers in Assam cabinets. His father, Kesab Chandra Gogoi served as the Chief Minister of Assam for two months in 1982. Gogoi is the only chief justice to have been the son of a Chief Minister. His mother, Shanti Priya Gogoi, was a prominent social activist, who founded an NGO named SEWA, in 2000, two years after the death of Kesab Chandra Gogoi in 1998. One of five children, Gogoi's four siblings, also excelled in their respective careers. He is also the first chief justice from Northeast India. Gogoi studied at Cotton University and later completed his higher studies at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. He enrolled at the bar in 1978 and practised at the Gauhati High Court under advocate JP Bhattacharjee. He began to practise independently in 1991 and became a senior counsel in 1999 at the court. His tenure on the Punjab and Haryana High Court saw orders which questioned the CBI’s promotion of SPS Rathore, despite the Ruchika Girhotra case, as well as several other judgements. He was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2012 and was sworn in by S. H. Kapadia. Gogoi made several important and landmark judgements during his tenure including the updating of the National Register of Citizens for Assam, and the Soumya Murder case. He also served on the bench that created special courts to try MLAs and MPs, and ruled against the Uttar Pradesh Government law wherein former Chief Ministers are allowed to occupy government bungalows. He was appointed the Chief Justice of India in 2018 and served until 2019. During his tenure, he oversaw several more important judgements, including the judgement on the Ayodhya dispute and the Rafale deal, before retiring in 2019. In 2020 he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, and has served on the committee on communications and information technology, and the committee on external affairs. He is the third Supreme Court judge to serve the Rajya Sabha, and the first to be nominated to his seat, after Ranganath Mishra and Baharul Islam, who were elected as members of the Indian National Congress. He has also written an autobiography titled "Justice for the Judge: An Autobiography". In 2019, he was listed as the third most powerful person in India.