President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday appointed Justice U U Lalit as the 49th Chief Justice of India with effect from August 27, 2022.
A statement from the Ministry of Law and Justice said, “In exercise of the power conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, the President has appointed Justice Lalit, judge of the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice of India. Justice Lalit will take over as the 49th Chief Justice of India on 27th August 2022”.
Incumbent Chief Justice of India N V Ramana will demit office on August 26 on superannuation.
In a message, the outgoing CJI congratulated Justice Lalit and wished him for a glorious tenure. Justice Ramana expressed confidence that with his long and rich experience in the Bar as well as on the Bench, Justice Lalit will take the institution of the judiciary to greater heights through his able leadership.
Justice Lalit, who was elevated to the top court directly from the Bar on August 13, 2014, would be having a short tenure of less than three months as the CJI since he would retire on November 8 at the age of 65.
He will be the second CJI, after late Justice S M Sikri, who was appointed directly from the Bar to the Supreme Court as a judge. Late Justice Sikri was the 13th Chief Justice of India from January 1971 to April 1973.
Justice Lalit was born on November 9, 1957, in Solapur, Maharashtra. He enrolled as an advocate by the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa in June 1983. He practised in the High Court of Bombay till December 1985 before shifting his practice to Delhi in January 1986.
Justice Lalit worked in the chambers of Soli J Sorabjee from October 1986 till 1992 and was on the panel of lawyers for the Union of India during the period Sorabjee was Attorney General for India. From 1992 to 2002 he practised as an advocate-on-record and was designated as a senior advocate by the Supreme Court in April 2004.
He was also appointed amicus curiae in many important issues, including forest matters, vehicular pollution, pollution of Yamuna etc. He was appointed as a special public prosecutor for CBI under the orders of the Supreme Court to conduct trial in all 2G matters.