New Delhi: Justice Uday Umesh Lalit was on Saturday, August 27 sworn in as the 49th Chief Justice of India (CJI).President Droupadi Murmu administered him the oath at a brief ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union ministers were present at the ceremony. Justice Lalit’s predecessor, Justice N.V. Ramana, was also present.Justice Lalit, who became the second CJI to be directly elevated to the apex court bench from the Bar, had on Friday, August 26 highlighted the three areas, saying he would strive hard to ensure that at least one Constitution bench was functioning in the top court throughout the year.Justice S.M. Sikri, who became the 13th CJI in January 1971, was the first lawyer to be elevated directly to the top court bench in March 1964.Justice Lalit will have a brief tenure of less than three months as the CJI, and he would retire on November 8. The retirement age of judges of the Supreme Court is 65.While speaking at a function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on August 26 to bid farewell to his predecessor Justice N.V. Ramana, Justice Lalit said, “I must assure you that we will strive hard to make the listing as simple, as clear and as transparent as possible”.Also read: A Look at Justice U.U. Lalit’s Career, India’s Next Chief JusticeDuring Justice Lalit’s tenure as the CJI, several important cases, including Constitution bench matters, are likely to come up for adjudication before the apex court. As a judge, he was part of the benches which delivered several path-breaking verdicts, including the one which held the practice of divorce through instant ‘triple talaq’ among Muslims illegal and unconstitutional.Justice Lalit had been a senior advocate before being appointed a judge of the apex court on August 13, 2014. As a lawyer, he was involved in high-profile and controversial cases. For instance, he had represented Amit Shah in the purported fake encounter killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati.As a judge, in January 2019, he recused himself from hearing the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land title dispute in Ayodhya.Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for a Muslim party in the matter, had told the Constitution bench that Justice Lalit appeared as a lawyer for former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh in a connected matter in the year 1997.Born on November 9, 1957, Justice Lalit enrolled as an advocate in June 1983 and practised in the Bombay high court till December 1985.He shifted his practice to Delhi in January 1986, and in April 2004, he was designated as a senior advocate by the apex court.He was appointed a special public prosecutor for the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct the trial in the 2G spectrum allocation case.(With PTI inputs)
