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Heads or Tails? How losing a toss changed CJI Ranjan Gogoi’s destiny

Their father Keshab Chandra Gogoi advised them to go for a toss.

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Justice Ranjan Gogoi was on Wednesday sworn in as the 46th Chief Justice of India, becoming the first person from the Northeast to reach the top position of the judiciary. He succeeds Justice Dipak Misra who demitted office on October 2 and will have a tenure of a little over 13 months before retiring on November 17, 2019. 

President Kovind administered the oath to the 63-year-old Justice Gogoi at a brief ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan's Darbar Hall. Justice Gogoi will have a tenure of a little over 13 months and would retire on November 17, 2019. 

Son of former Assam chief minister Keshab Chandra Gogoi, he hails from Dibrugarh in Assam and was born on November 18, 1954. He did his schooling in Don Bosco School Dibrugarh before studying history in Delhi University's St Stephen's College.

While his rise from a lawyer at Gauhati High Court in 1978 to the top judicial post in India has been through his years of hard work, him choosing law was a chance incident. 

Justice Gogoi has an elder brother, Anjan Kumar Gogoi, who rose to the ranks of Air Marshal in the Indian Air Force. While Ranjan and Anjan were growing up in Dibrugarh, their father Keshab Chandra Gogoi told the two that only one of them could go to Sainik School which would pave the way for them to join the Indian armed forces.

With none of the two yielding, the father left their fate to a coin toss. On their father's advice, the two brothers decided to go for a toss which elder brother Anjan won. He joined the Sainik School Goalpara in Assam in 1964 and eventually went on to become an Air Marshal.

The younger Ranjan went to Don Bosco School in Dibrugarh and later studied history at Delhi's St Stephen's college. After college, he appeared for UPSC exam and cleared it but told his father that he would take up law. His father was also a lawyer who went on to become the Chief Minister of Assam for 66 days in 1982.

The anecdote was shared by Supreme Court Bar Association president Vikas Singh at a felicitation organised for CJI Gogoi on Wednesday. 

Justice Gogoi was enrolled as an advocate in 1978. He practised in the Gauhati High Court on constitutional, taxation and company matters. He was appointed as a permanent judge of the Gauhati High Court on February 28, 2001.

On September 9, 2010, he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He was appointed the chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court on February 12, 2011 and then a judge of the Supreme Court on April 23, 2012.

He was one of the four senior Supreme Court judges -- Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph -- who virtually revolted against CJI Misra over "selective" case allocation and certain judicial orders in January this year.

His brother Anjan Kumar Gogoi is a retired Air Marshal who was an accomplished fighter pilot with over 3000 hours of flying on various aircraft. He was the first batch of students in Sainik School Goalpara in the state in 1964.

The National Defence Academy (NDA) graduate was commissioned in the Fighter Stream of the Indian Air Force on June 2, 1973. He is a Qualified Flying Instructor, a Fighter Combat Leader and a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College (Wellington). The M Phil in Defence and Management Studies from DAVV university Indore is also a recipient of the Param Vishist Seva Medal, Ati Vishist Seva Medal, Vishisht Seva Medal and Aide de Camp.

The Air Marshal held various key appointments, including Director General Air (Operations) at Air headquarters and Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of South Western Air Command before retiring in February 2013.

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