Justice Dipankar Datta took oath today as the new Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court in an event which saw limited physical participation, given the COVID-19 lockdown, and which was live-streamed for others to see.

Maharashtra's Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath of office to the new Chief Justice in a ceremony that also saw the participation of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Originally hailing from Calcutta, Chief Justice Dipankar Datta was appointed to take over the helm of the Bombay High Court, given that Chief Justice BP Dharmadhikari reaches superannuation age on April 28 (tomorrow).

Justice Datta was born in February 1965 to former judge of the Calcutta High Court, late Justice Salil Kumar Datta. He obtained his LL.B. degree from the University of Calcutta in 1989 and enrolled as an advocate the same year. Following this, he practised primarily in the Supreme Court and High Courts in Constitutional and civil matters. He was elevated as a permanent Judge of the Calcutta High Court on June 22, 2006.

Justice Datta's appointment as the Bombay High Court Chief Justice was notified on April 23 made pursuant to a Collegium statement issued earlier this month.

Two days after the Centre's notification regarding his new post, Justice Datta left his Kolkata residence on April 15 to undertake a two-day journey by road to Mumbai amid the COVID-19 lockdown, so that he could be sworn in this evening.

Travel details signed off by the Calcutta High Court Registrar (Protocol) inform that the judge traversed by car from Kolkata to Bhubaneswar, Orissa to finally stop at Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh for the night of April 25 (Saturday).

The following day, he travelled to Solapur, Maharashtra via Vijayawada. On Monday morning, he is stated to have departed from Solapur, to halt briefly in Pune before he arrived in Mumbai the same day. The oath taking ceremony was conducted this evening at 5 pm.

Watch the video of the oath taking ceremony here: