India's outgoing chief justice NV Ramana on Thursday (4) recommended Justice Uday Umesh Lalit as his successor and it came hours after the former received an official communication from the country's law and justice ministry to recommend his successor.
The tenure of Ramana, who is the 48th chief justice of India (CJI) and has been serving since April 2021, concludes on August 26.
Lalit, who has been a judge of India's apex court since August 2014, will have a tenure of less than three months. If appointed, he will only be the second judge after SM Sikri (1971-73) who will be elevated from the bar to go on to become the CJI.
How is the CJI appointed?
According to the Memorandum of Procedure that governs the appointment of judges in the higher judiciary, the outgoing chief justice initiates the process by renaming the successor after receiving a missive from the law ministry. The chief justice generally recommends the senior-most judge as his successor. The law ministry then forwards the recommendation to the prime minister who advises the president on such high-profile appointments.
However, there have been instances in the history of the Indian judiciary when such procedures were not followed. One was in 1973 when AN Ray was appointed as the CJI even when there were three other judges senior to him. Also in 1977, Justice MH Beg became the chief justice instead of Justice HR Khanna.
Who is Justice Lalit?
Born on November 9, 1957, to a judge father, Justice Lalit started his legal career in 1983 and worked in the Bombay High Court till 1985. He later shifted to Delhi where he was appointed as a senior lawyer by the supreme court in 2004. He worked with former attorney general of India Soli Sorabjee between 1986 and 1992. He also served as a special prosecutor for India's elite investigative agency -- the central Bureau of Investigation -- before becoming a supreme court judge.
In January 2019, Justice Lalit recused himself from a five-judge bench which was constituted to hear India's controversial Ayodhya dispute case.
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