Justice U U Lalit Becomes 49th Chief Justice Of India, Carries Forward Family Legacy In Advocacy
Delhi, 28th August 2022: Justice Uday Umesh Lalit took the oath as the 49th Chief Justice of India on Saturday. President Draupadi Murmu administered the oath to Justice Lalit at a brief ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and several Union Ministers attended the ceremony. Justice NV Ramana, who served as the Chief Justice before Justice Lalit, was also present.
After taking the oath, Justice Lalit took the blessings of his 90-year-old father and former High Court judge Umesh Ranganath Lalit and other family elders by touching their feet. Justice Lalit will have a tenure of 74 days as the Chief Justice. He will retire on 8th November this year when he turns 65. Justice DY Chandrachud, the senior-most judge after Justice Lalit, could be the next Chief Justice.
After coming to Delhi from Mumbai, U.U Lalit’s professional life began from an apartment in Mayur Vihar and has reached the swearing-in of the Durbar Hall in Rashtrapati Bhavan. He made a mark in the field of advocacy in Delhi with his distinct style and was recognized as a top criminal lawyer. Lalit is also known as a soft-spoken person with unsurpassed arguments and a gentle personality.
The family members of Justice Lalit have been working in the field of advocacy for more than a century. His grandfather, Ranganath Lalit, used to practice law in Solapur, Maharashtra. His father, Umesh Ranganath Lalit, started his law practice in Solapur. He earned a lot of names in advocacy in Mumbai. He was also a judge of the Mumbai High Court.
The professional life of CJI Lalit’s wife, Amita Uday Lalit, is different from the field of advocacy. She is a teacher who has been running a school in Noida for decades. The couple has two sons. Their elder son Shreyas and his wife, Raveena, are lawyers. The younger son, Harshad, lives in America with his wife, Radhika.
Lalit was appointed as a Supreme Court judge on 13th August 2014. He was a senior advocate then. He has been a part of several landmark decisions, including outlawing the practice of triple talaq among Muslims. A five-judge constitution bench had declared triple talaq unconstitutional by a 3:2 majority in August 2017. Justice Lalit was among those three judges.
He recused himself from hearing the politically sensitive issue of the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case in January 2019. Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for one of the Muslim parties in the case, had told the Constitution Bench that Justice Lalit had appeared in a related matter in 1997 as the counsel for former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh.
Justice Lalit has been a part of several important decisions. Recently, a bench headed by Justice Lalit was set at 9.30 am, an hour before the normal time of the apex court to hear cases. Justice Lalit had said, “I think, ideally, we should sit at nine in the morning. I have always said that if our children can go to school at seven in the morning, why can’t we come to work at nine.”
A bench headed by Justice Lalit fixed the time from 10.30 am to 1.00 pm on 3rd September(Saturday) for the hearing of the case of Amrapali home sellers, during a holiday in the apex court. In another important decision, a bench headed by Justice Lalit held that the erstwhile royal family of Travancore has the right to manage the historic Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Kerala.
