Aastha Thakur
Publication on: 27 August 2022 at 13:55 IST
On Saturday, Justice UU Lalit was sworn in as the 49th Chief Justice of India. The President of India, Droupadi Murmu, administered the oath of office to the new CJI.
The oath ceremony was held at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, which saw the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, previous Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, former President Ramnath Kovind, Supreme Court judges Justices DY Chandrachud, S. Abdul Nazeer, and other dignitaries.
The official notification regarding Justice Lalit’s appointment as the Chief Justice of India was issued on August 10. Justice Lalit is the second CJI to be elevated to the Supreme Court directly from the Bar. Before him, Justice S M Sikri was the first to become the 13th CJI in January 1971.
On November 8, 2022, Justice Lalit will retire with a relatively short term of 74 days.
Before his elevation as a judge, Justice Lalit was appointed as a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court on August 13, 2014.
In the majority opinion of the Constitution Bench judgements, like the unconstitutionality of Triple Talaq, the administration of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple was handed over to a Court-appointed committee, as well as the POCSO judgement regarding ‘skin-to-skin’, which was also held an offence no matter whether contact was direct or not.
Before his elevation as a judge of the Supreme Court on August 13, 2014, Justice Lalit was a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court. His father, Justice UR Lalit, was a Senior Advocate and was an Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court.
A bench led by Justice Lalit had recently expressed the need to lay down proper guidelines to reduce the element of subjectivity in awarding death sentences and a bench led by him had initiated a suo motu case for streamlining the process of consideration of mitigating circumstances in death penalty matters.
As a lawyer, Justice Lalit was known for his practise in the field of criminal law and also handled high-profile criminal cases. In 2011, the Supreme Court appointed him as Special Public Prosecutor in the matter of the 2G scam.
His father, Justice UR Lalit, was a Senior Advocate and was elevated to the position of Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court. In December 1985, Justice Lalit started his practise in the Bombay High Court. Later on, he shifted his practise to Delhi in January 1986. He assisted the former Attorney-General, Soli J. Sorabjee, from 1986 to 1992. In April 2004, he was designated to the post of senior advocate by the apex court.
He has initiated many programmes ensuring justice for all through lok adalats and legal aid programmes across the country.