CJI N V Ramana recommends Justice U U Lalit as his successor; Letter sent to Law Minister

New Delhi: Three weeks before his retirement, Chief Justice of India N V Ramana today recommended the second most senior Judge of the Supreme Court Justice U U Lalit as his successor.

Justice Lalit will take over from CJI Ramana, who is due to demit office on August 26, and serve as the 49th Chief Justice of India till November 08, 2022.

Justice Lalit will have a term of two months and two weeks as Chief Justice

The official letter recommending Justice Lalit’s name was forwarded to Law Ministry

An official statement read: “Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India Shri Justice N V Ramana today recommended the name of Hon’ble Shri Justice Uday Umesh Lalit as his successor to the Hon’ble Minister for Law and Justice. Shri Justice Ramana personally handed over a copy of his letter of recommendation dated 03.08.2022 to Shri Justice Lalit today (04.08.2022) in the morning. It may be recalled that the Secretariat of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India received a communication dated 03.08.2022 from Hon’ble Minister of Law and Justice requesting Hon’ble CJI to recommend the name of his successor yesterday (03.08.2022) at 2130 hrs.”

Justice Lalit will become the second CJI who was directly elevated to the apex court Bench from the Bar.

PROFILE

Born on November 9, 1957, Justice Lalit enrolled as an Advocate 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 was designated as Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in April 2004. He had appeared as Amicus Curiae in many matters.

Justice Lalit was appointed Special Public Prosecutor for CBI to conduct a trial in all 2G matters under the orders of the Supreme Court. He was a Member of the Supreme Court of India Legal Services Committee for two terms. He was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of India on August 13, 2014.

BIG JUDGMENTS

Justice Lalit was part of several landmark judgements of the apex court.

One of the path-breaking verdicts was the August 2017 judgement by a five-judge constitution bench which by a 3-2 majority ruled the practice of divorce through instant 'triple talaq' as "void", "illegal" and "unconstitutional".

While then Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice S Abdul Nazeer were in favour of putting on hold the judgement for six months and asking the government to come out with a law to that effect, Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman and U U Lalit held the practice as violative of the Constitution.

Justices Khehar, Joseph and Nariman have since retired.

In another important judgement, a bench headed by Justice Lalit had ruled the erstwhile royal family of Travancore has the management right over the historic Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala, one of the richest shrines, holding that the rule of "heritability must get attached to a right of Shebait" (servitor) of the temple.

The bench had allowed the appeal of the legal heirs of Uthradam Thirunal Marthanda Varma, the younger brother of the last ruler, Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, setting aside the Kerala High Court's 2011 verdict which directed the state government to set up a trust to take control of the management and assets of the temple.

A bench headed by Justice U U Lalit had ruled that touching sexual parts of a child's body or any act involving physical contact with 'sexual intent' amounts to 'sexual assault' under section 7 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act as the most important ingredient is sexual intent and not skin-to-skin contact.

Quashing the controversial 'skin-to-skin' judgements of the Bombay High Court in two cases under the POCSO Act, the bench had said the high court erred in holding that there was no offence since there was no direct 'skin-to-skin' contact with sexual intent.

The high court had held that no offence of sexual assault under the POCSO Act was made out if there was no direct skin-to-skin contact between an accused and the victim.

Born on November 9, 1957, Justice Lalit enrolled as an advocate in June 1983 and practised in the Bombay High Court till December 1985.

He shifted his practice to Delhi in January 1986, and in April 2004, he was designated as a senior advocate by the apex court.

He was appointed a special public prosecutor for the CBI to conduct a trial in the 2G spectrum allocation case.

AS EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF NALSA

Ever since Justice Lalit took over as the executive chairperson of NALSA in June last year, new records were made in the disposal of cases in Lok Adalats as he infused renewed vigour and use of technological tools to facilitate the settlement of cases.