Dipak Misra

The first progress in the Ayodhya dispute occurred during Justice Misra’s tenure when the Bench led by him restricted the dispute only to the title suit and rejected third party interventions. The Bench led by him rejected the plea to refer the ''Ismail Faruqui'' judgment to a Constitution Bench thereby upholding that a mosque was not integral to the Muslim way of worship, which has an important bearing on the dispute.

Justice Misra was part of the bench that ruled out Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code dealing with adultery. On 27 September 2018, Misra read the judgment that adultery will no longer be a criminal offence, but can serve as a reason for other civil issues, such as divorce.

On 12 January 2018, four senior judges of the Supreme Court; Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph addressed a press conference criticising Misra's style of administration and allocation of cases. However, people close to Misra refuted these allegations. Legal experts like Soli Sorabjee and Ujjwal Nikam said that this rebellion of the four judges against the Chief Justice of India is going to hurt the judiciary by eroding public faith in it.

On 20 April 2018, seven opposition parties submitted a petition seeking impeachment of Dipak Misra to the Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, with signatures from seventy-one parliamentarians.

On 23 April 2018, the petition was rejected by Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, primarily on the basis that the complaints were about the internal administration and not misbehaviour, and that thus impeachment would seriously interfere with the constitutionally protected independence of the judiciary.

Justice Misra had a tenure of thirteen months as chief justice at the Supreme Court after being appointed as the 45th Chief Justice of India on 28 August 2017 until mandatory retirement at 65 years of age, on 2 October 2018 and was succeeded by Ranjan Gogoi.

A three judge bench led by Justice Misra has upheld the death sentence awarded to the four convicts of the Nirbhaya rape case on 5 May 2017. Justice Misra authored the landmark judgement confirming the death penalty of four convicts in the brutal 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case which shook the nation and spurred the genesis of a stringent anti-rape law. In his verdict, Justice Misra termed the convicts as those who “found an object for enjoyment in her... for their gross, sadistic and beastly pleasures... for the devilish manner in which they played with her dignity and identity is humanly inconceivable”.

Justice Misra led the bench which rejected the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon's appeal to stop his execution. He then received a death threat in writing, an anonymous letter which says "irrespective of the protection you may avail, we will eliminate you." In an unprecedented overnight hearing at 3:20 am on 30 July 2015, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Misra dismissed Yakub Memon's last-minute petition for a stay on his death warrant. The bench said: "if we have to stay the death warrant it would be a travesty of justice. We do not find any merit in the writ petition". Few hours later, Memon was hanged.

Misra enrolled at the Bar on 14 February 1977 and practised at the Orissa High Court and the Service Tribunal. He was first appointed as an Additional Judge of the Orissa High Court in 1996. The following year, he was transferred to the Madhya Pradesh High Court, where he was made a Permanent Judge on 19 December 1997. In December 2009, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Patna High Court, serving until May 2010, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. He was elevated to the Supreme Court on 10 October 2011.

Justice Dipak Misra (born 3 October 1953) is an eminent Indian jurist who served as the 45th Chief Justice of India from 28 August 2017 till 2 October 2018. He is also a former Chief Justice of the Patna and Delhi High Courts. He is the nephew of Justice Ranganath Misra, who was the 21st Chief Justice from 1990 to 1991. He succeeded J. S. Khehar, the 44th Chief Justice.