Aravind Kumar (born 14 July 1962) is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is former chief justice of the Gujarat High Court and former judge of the Karnataka High Court.

Justice Aravind Kumar was born in Karnataka on July 14th, 1962. He did his schooling and college at Bengaluru and studied degree at National College and completed L.L.B. from V.V. Puram College in Bangalore. During student days, was active as Students Union Leader and was Vice President of Bangalore University Students Action Committee. He enrolled as an advocate in 1987.

Justice Kumar began his career as advocate by practising law in Civil Courts, Magistrate Courts, and Appellate Tribunals for about 4 years. From the year 1991 onwards he shifted to practising independently at the Karnataka High Court. During this time, he acted as an advisor, standing counsel and committee member for several statutory bodies.

In 1999, he was appointed as Additional Central Government Standing Counsel at the Karnataka High Court and as a Standing Counsel for the Income Tax Department in 2002. He was also appointed as a member of the Regional Direct Taxes Advisory Committee in 2002.

He became the Assistant Solicitor General of India in 2005. He has conducted cases covering Constitution of India, Central Excise Act, Customs Act, Code of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure Code, etc. He has also held the position of Special Public Prosecutor for the Central Bureau of Investigation.

He had also conducted number of Election Petitions pertaining to Assembly & Parliamentary Constituencies and also been practicing on Taxation side as Standing Counsel of Income Tax Department for 11 years.

He also served as a Legal Advisor to various Statutory Corporations and Companies.

He also was one of the Founder Member of Lahari Advocates Forum which is an organization promoted by distinguished Senior Advocates for promoting Legal Education, training young Advocates, conducting workshops on various subjects for Advocates, conducting orientation courses to young Advocates seeking appointment as Judicial Officers and also served as its Vice President.

He was Special Public Prosecutor for CBI till elevation.

In 2009, Justice Kumar was appointed as an Additional Judge to the Karnataka HC and took oath of office on 26 June 2009. He became a Permanent Judge with effect from 07 December 2012. As a judge at the Karnataka HC, Justice Kumar served as the Executive Chairman of the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority. He was also part of the Bench that oversaw the implementation of COVID 19 protocols in the state along with Justice A.S. Oka (then Chief Justice of Karnataka HC).

Justice Kumar was appointed as 26th Chief Justice of the Gujarat HC in October 2021 upon elevation of the then chief justice Vikram Nath to supreme court in august that year. He took oath of office as Chief Justice on 13.10.2021 and had been discharging duties till 12.02.2023. During this time he was committed to dealing with the issue of pendency of cases. He set up ‘justice clocks’ in each courtroom to track pendency of cases and displayed them on the High Court website. During his tenure, the quarterly rate of clearance of cases remained above 85%.

He also endeavoured to increase legal education by setting up ‘signal schools’ in collaboration with the State government of Gujarat to educate children begging at traffic signals. Justice Kumar first established a similar program while working at the Karnataka HC.

Justice Kumar was recommended by Supreme Court Collegium to be appointed as judge in supreme court on 31 January 2023.^[2] Central Government cleared his appointment on 10.02.2023.^[3] Subsequently he took oath as judge of supreme court on 13.02.2023. He is due to retire from Supreme Court on 13.07.2027.