Harilal Jekisundas Kania

Harilal Jekisundas Kania was the first Chief Justice of India, holding the post from January 1950 until his death in November 1951. Born in Surat in 1890 to a family of Sanskrit scholars, he trained at Government Law College in Bombay and began practicing law in 1915. He served as a judge of the Bombay High Court and later the Federal Court of India, becoming that court's own Chief Justice before leading the newly formed Supreme Court of India at independence. During his brief tenure he wrote thirty judgments and sat on sixty eight benches before dying suddenly of a heart attack while still in office.