Justice Uday Umesh Lalit Appointed 49th Chief Justice of India, Will Succeed CJI Ramana

Justice UU Lalit, the senior-most judge on the Supreme Court, was named the 49th Chief Justice of India on Wednesday. He will succeed incumbent Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, who will step down on August 26.

India
By TCP News Desk
Chief Justice of India NV Ramana with Justice Uday Umesh Lalit during a meeting, in New Delhi(PTI)

Justice UU Lalit, the senior-most judge on the Supreme Court, was named the 49th Chief Justice of India on Wednesday. He will succeed incumbent Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, who will step down on August 26.

“In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution of India, the President of India is pleased to appoint Shri Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, Judge of the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice of India with effect from 27th August 2022,” according to an official notification.

Justice Lalit, a well-known senior advocate, has become the Supreme Court’s second Chief Justice to be appointed directly from the Bar. Previously, Justice SM Sikri, the 13th Chief Justice of India appointed in January 1971, was the first lawyer to be elevated directly to the Supreme Court bench in March 1964.

In April 2004, the Supreme Court designated Lalit as a senior advocate. He relocated his practise to Delhi in January 1986. He was appointed by the CBI as a special public prosecutor to conduct the trial in the 2G spectrum allocation case.

Justice Lalit is due to retire on November 8, 2022.

Groundbreaking decisions

Justice Lalit, who was set to become India’s next Chief Justice, was involved in several landmark decisions, including one that declared the practise of ‘triple talaq’ among Muslims unconstitutional.

In August 2017, a landmark decision declared “triple talaq” to be “void,” “illegal,” and “unconstitutional.” A five-judge panel rendered the decision. While then-Chairman J S Khehar and Justice S Abdul Nazeer supported putting the judgement on hold for six months and asking the government to pass legislation to that effect, Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, and U U Lalit saw the practise as a violation of the Constitution.

Another significant decision was made by a bench led by Justice Lalit, who ruled that touching sexual parts of a child’s body or any act involving physical contact with’sexual intent’ amounts to’sexual assault’ under the POCSO Act. He determined that sexual intent, not skin-to-skin contact, was the most important factor.

Justice Lalit overturned the Bombay High Court’s contentious “skin-to-skin” decisions in two POCSO Act cases. The bench stated that the high court erred in ruling that there was no crime because there was no direct’skin-to-skin’ contact with sexual intent.

 

TCP News Desk
You might also like More from author