Senior Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjiv Khanna will take oath as the 51st Chief Justice of India on November 11, but his parents wanted him to be a Charted Accountant. They believed a legal career was full of challenges and hardship, sources close to him said. But Sanjiv Khanna chose to embrace the law, inspired by his uncle, Supreme Court’s Justice HR Khanna.
“He always considered his uncle an ideal and used to keenly follow his work,” sources told NDTV. And that involved not only the law. “Justice HR Khanna used to polish not only his shoes but also that of other family members. He used to wash his own clothes as well,” sources said.
Sanjiv Khanna has preserved all the copies of Justice HR Khanna’s judgments, notes, registers, sources said. He wants to donate them to the top court’s library once he demits office.
In 2019, Justice Sanjiv Khanna spent his first day as a Supreme Court judge in the same court room where his uncle worked. Justice HR Khanna’s portrait is there in the room, but Sanjiv Khanna never got his photo clicked there. He would do so before he retires, sources said. Sanjiv Khanna is expected to demit office on 13 May 2025.
Justice Sanjiv Khanna’s mother Saroj Khanna was a lecturer at Lady Shri Ram College. His father Devraj Khanna was a lawyer who later became a judge of the Delhi High Court.
Justice HR Khanna gave a dissenting judgment in the “habeas corpus case” of ADM, Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla, in 1976.
When Indira Gandhi’s government appointed Justice MH Beg as the top judge of the country in January 1977, Justice HK Khanna had resigned.