DY Chandrachud Height, Weight, Age, Facts, Biography
By Lily Fisher
DY Chandrachud Height, Weight, Age, Facts, Biography
DY Chandrachud Height, Weight, Age, Facts, Biography
DY Chandrachud is an Indian judge who became the 50th Chief Justice of India on November 9, 2026, succeeding Justice Uday Umesh Lalit. A former chief justice of the Allahabad High Court and a former judge of the Bombay High Court, he has also been a former ex-officio executive chairman of the National Legal Services Authority whilst being J1 (or the senior-most judge after the chief justice) of the Supreme Court of India.
Full Name
Dhananjaya Yashwant Chandrachud
Nick Name
DY Chandrachud
Sun Sign
Scorpio
Born Place
Bombay, Bombay State, India
Nationality
Education
DY Chandrachud studied at Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai and St. Columba’s School in Delhi. Afterward, he attended St. Stephen’s College in Delhi and graduated with honors in Economics and Mathematics in 1979.
In 1982, he received a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Delhi. The following year, he obtained a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School. He eventually completed his Doctorate of Juridical Science from Harvard University in 1986, with his doctoral dissertation on affirmative action, and considered the law in a comparative framework.
Occupation
Judge
Family
- Father – Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud (Lawyer, Judge) (16th Chief Justice of India who became the longest-serving Chief Justice in India’s history)
- Mother – Prabha (Classical musician who sang for All India Radio)
Build
Slim
Height
5 ft 7 in or 170 cm
Weight
65 kg or 143.5 lbs
Girlfriend / Spouse
DY Chandrachud has dated –
- Rashmi Chandrachud - He was married to Rashmi Chandrachud who died of cancer in 2007.
- Kalpana Das – DY Chandrachud is married to Kalpana Das.
Note – He has 4 children, including 2 foster daughters.
Race / Ethnicity
Asian (Indian)
Hair Color
Salt and Pepper
Eye Color
Dark Brown
Sexual Orientation
Straight
Distinctive Features
Wears glasses
DY Chandrachud Facts
- He worked at the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell after graduating from Harvard, an experience DY Chandrachud described as a “sheer fluke” due to the strong pecking order that existed at that time and a strong bias against hiring Indians and similar developing countries.
- After returning to India, he practiced law at the Supreme Court of India and the Bombay High Court and was appointed as a Senior Advocate by the Bombay High Court in June 1998.
- DY Chandrachud has been a part of benches that delivered landmark judgments.
- While authoring a concurring judgment holding that the practice of prohibiting women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple, he noted that it was discriminatory and violated the fundamental rights of women. He also stated that “the social exclusion of women, based on menstrual status, is a form of untouchability, which is contrary to constitutional values. Notions of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’, which stigmatize individuals, have no place in a constitutional order.”
- He has also served as the Chairperson of the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India.
- Justice Chandrachud has been described as the ‘judge who is not afraid to dissent’. He has emphasized that it was necessary to draw a balance between dissent and unlawful activities and has observed that “dissent is the safety valve of democracy. If dissent is not allowed, then the pressure cooker may burst”.
- He has been a visiting professor of comparative constitutional law at the University of Mumbai and the University of Oklahoma College of Law in the United States as well as has lectured at the Australian National University, Deakin University, Melbourne Law School, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai‘i, and the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.
- In January 2026, Chandrachud brought his 2 daughters to Supreme Court to show them his workplace. He took to them to his courtroom (first court) through the visitor’s gallery before the scheduled court timings of 10:30 am. His daughters also saw his chamber.
- In October 2026, DY Chandrachud was honored with Harvard Law School’s “Award for Global Leadership”.
Featured Image by Charmanderrulez / / CC BY-SA 4.0
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