New Delhi: Justice Uday Umesh Lalit took oath as the 49th Chief Justice of India on Saturday succeeding Justice NV Ramana who was also present during the swearing-in ceremony. President Droupadi Murmu administered him the oath in a brief ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhawan. Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Ministers were also present during the ceremony.
Justice Lalit will have a brief stint of around two months as he will resign from the office on November 8.
He is the second CJI to be nominated immediately from the Bar without first serving as a high court judge. Only Justice SM Sikri, who served as CJI from January 1971 to April 1973, was chosen straight from the Bar.
Son of Justice UR Lalit, a renowned counsel and a Delhi High Court judge, Justice UU Lalit was a senior advocate at the Supreme Court before being appointed as a judge on august 13, 2014.
In 2019, Justice Lalit freed former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh from the Ayodhya lawsuit, citing his attendance in a contempt case related to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, according to LiveLaw.
He had stressed on the need of suitable rules to eliminate the element of subjectivity in cases of death penalty. A bench led by him had launched a suo motu case to streamline the process of considering mitigating circumstances in death penalty cases.
Justice Lalit was among the majority of the Constitution Bench judges to rule Triple Talaq as unconstitutional.
A court led by him had overturned Bombay High Court's contentious "skin-to-skin" decision last year,
ruling that any physical contact with a juvenile with sexual intent is an offence under POCSO even if there is no direct touch with skin.
Justice Lalit, who was born on November 9, 1957, became an attorney in June 1983 and practised in the Bombay High Court till December 1985.
In January 1986, he relocated his practise to Delhi. From 1986 until 1992, he worked for former Attorney General Soli J. Sorabjee. The Supreme Court named him as a senior advocate in April 2004.