Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is learnt to have asked Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra to recommend the name of his successor, setting in motion the process of change of guard in the Supreme Court. Justice Misra retires on October 2. Sources in the Law Ministry said the letter was delivered to the CJI recently.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi is the senior-most judge of the top court after the CJI. Speculations over Justice Gogoi's appointment as the next CJI emerged following an unprecedented press conference by four senior-most judges, including Justice Gogoi, in January this year when they had criticised Justice Misra over various issues, especially the manner of allocation of cases to certain benches.