 After resigning from the Supreme Court on getting superseded by Justice M. H. Beg to the office of the Chief Justice of India, he served as the central minister of law and justice for a very short period of three days in the Charan Singh Ministry after the fall of the Indira Gandhi Government and was later made a combined opposition-sponsored candidate for election as President in 1982, losing to Zail Singh.In 1999, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in recognition of his career in judicial service, the second highest civilian honour given by the Government of India.Khanna was born in Amritsar, Punjab in 1912, the son of lawyer and freedom fighter Sarb Dyal Khanna.