49th Chief Justice Of India: All You Need To Know About Uday Umesh Lalit

CJI UU Lalit Profile: He will be the second Chief Justice of the country who was directly elevated from the bar to the bench of the Supreme Court.

New Delhi: President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday appointed Justice Uday Umesh Lalit as the next 49th Chief Justice of India (CJI). Last week, Chief Justice of India NV Ramana recommended the name of Justice Lalit as his successor to the Union Minister for Law and Justice. Justice Ramana is set to demit office on August 26. He will be the second Chief Justice of the country who was directly elevated from the bar to the bench of the Supreme Court. 

Before him, Justice S. M. Sikri was the first lawyer to be promoted directly to the bench of the apex court in March 1964. He became the 13th CJI in January 1971.

Know About The New CJI:

- Justice Lalit was born on 9 November 1957 at Solapur in Maharashtra. He started his law practice in the Bombay High Court in June 1983. Here he practiced till 1985. He was nominated as Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in 2004.

- In January 1986, he shifted his practice to Delhi. He was directly elevated as a Supreme Court Judge from the Bar on 13 August 2014.

- He was then appointed as the acting chairman of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) in May 2021.

- He has participated in the trials as the Public Prosecutor of the CBI in all 2G cases under the orders of the Supreme Court. He has also served as a member of the Legal Services Committee of the Supreme Court for two terms.

Justice Lalit will have a brief tenure of less than three months as CJI and will retire on November 8 this year. The retirement age of Supreme Court judges is 65 years. Justice Lalit was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court on 13 August 2014.