K.G. Balakrishnan

New Delhi, Jan. 14: Konakuppakatil Gopinathan Balakrishnan today took oath as 37th Chief Justice of India. He is the first Dalit to occupy the post.

Balakrishnan hails from Kerala’s Kottayam, the district that also sent K. R. Narayanan, who was the first person from the Dalit community to become President.

Balakrishnan will have a term of three years and four months, until May 12, 2010. By contrast, his predecessor, Justice Y. K. Sabharwal, was in office for 14 months.

Born in 1945, Balakrishnan’s first stint in the judiciary was as a munsif magistrate. Realising this wouldn’t get him too far, he resigned from the Kerala judicial service job.

He started out as an advocate in Kerala High Court before being elevated as a judge there in 1985. At 40, he was among the high court’s youngest judges, a post in which he went on to serve for over 12 years.

Since 1997, Balakrishnan has been chief justice of the Gujarat and Madras high courts. He was promoted to the Supreme Court on June 8, 2000. He was 55 then. Not too many have made it to the apex court at that age. By the time he retires, he will have spent a decade in the apex court.

Born a Pulaya (a scheduled caste in Kerala), Balakrishnan faced discrimination and financial hardships as his father, a clerk, struggled to provide for the family. He remembers walking 5 km to school.

“Judges speak through judgments,’’ he says, when asked to comment on reservation. Balakrishnan has never used reservation.