Justice Uday Umesh Lalit was on Saturday sworn in as the 49th Chief Justice of India.
President Droupadi Murmu administered him the oath at a brief ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union ministers were present at the ceremony.
Justice Lalit's predecessor, Justice N V Ramana, was also present.
Former CJI N V Ramana recommended Justice Uday Umesh Lalit as his successor. As per convention, the present CJI is supposed to recommend the name of his successor to the Centre.
The recommendation came after the CJI’s Secretariat received a communication from Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju on August 3 requesting him to recommend the name of his successor. The CJI personally handed over a copy of his letter of recommendation to Justice Lalit, next in seniority to Justice Ramana.
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Justice Lalit is appointed as the head of the judiciary on August 27. He will have a tenure of less than three months as chief justice of India. He will retire on November 8 this year.
Justice Lalit is the second CJI who was directly elevated to the apex court Bench from the Bar. Justice S M Sikri, who became the 13th CJI in January 1971, was the first lawyer to be elevated directly to the top court bench in March 1964.
Born November 9, 1957, Justice Lalit practised as an advocate in the Bombay High Court from 1983 to 1985 before moving to the national capital, Delhi. Lalit was designated senior lawyer by the Supreme Court in April 2004. Within a decade, he was appointed a Supreme Court judge on August 13, 2014. Before being recommended to be appointed as a Supreme Court judge by the Bar, Lalit conducted the trial in 2G matters as a special public prosecutor for the CBI.
