NEW DELHI: Justice UU Lalit on Saturday took oath as the 49th Chief Justice of India (CJI).
President of India Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Justice Lalit at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Justice Lalit is the second CJI to be directly elevated to the Supreme Court from the Bar. The first was Justice SM Sikri who served as CJI from January 1971 to April 1973.
Justice Lalit was born on November 9, 1957, to a former judge of the Bombay High Court and now a Senior Advocate, UR Lalit. He enrolled as an advocate in June 1983 and practised at the Bombay High Court till December 1985. He moved to the national capital in January 1986 and was later designated a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court in April 2004.
He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court on August 13, 2014, directly from the Bar and will demit office on November 8 this year.
Earlier on August 26, the Supreme Court of India created history by going live with the court proceedings.
The proceeding of the bench headed by former CJI N V Ramana has been live streamed through a webcast portal which also happened to be the last day of CJI N V Ramana at the office.
"I hope that I stood up to the expectation which you expected from me. I discharged my duties as Chief Justice in whatever possible way. I have taken up two issues, all of you know, the infrastructure and the appointment of judges. Thanks to the support given by my brother and sister judges in Supreme Court and Collegium, we successfully appointed almost 224 judges in high courts," shared the outgoing CJI while speaking at an event organised by the Delhi High Court Bar Association to bid him farewell.
Notably, judgments – on some 20 cases had been streamed with the most significant order being on a petition seeking that political parties who offer freebies before elections are deregistered.
Attorney General K K Venugopal had earlier suggested that live streaming of important cases in the Chief Justice's court can be started on a pilot basis.
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