NEW DEHLI
\nUday Umesh Lalit was sworn in on Saturday as India\u2019s Chief Justice for the Supreme Court, though he is only set to hold the post for 74 days before his retirement falls due in November.
\nUnder India\u2019s constitution, Supreme Court justices are required to retire aged 65 years. The chief justice is appointed by the president according to seniority.
\nEarlier this month, Lalit\u2019s predecessor Chief Justice N.V. Ramana said 65 \u201cwas too early to retire\u201d for a judge.
\nAn estimated 45 million cases are pending in Indian courts according to the National Judicial Data Grid. The slow disposal was mainly due to a shortage of judges, with some 5,000 positions lying vacant in the lower judiciary, and 400 vacant positions for high court judges.
\nThe Supreme Court currently has around 30 judges, and there are four vacancies.
\nDuring his oath-taking ceremony today, Justice Lalit said that there would be a permanent five-judge bench in the Supreme Court and promised to expedite hearings on cases referred to three-judge benches, The Times Of India Reported On Saturday.
\nHe said that during his 74-day tenure as the CJI, he would strive hard to make the listing process for fresh cases as simple, effective, quick and transparent as possible, the TOI said.
\nAccording to a report published in NDTV, the new chief justice was born on November 9, 1957, in Maharashtra. Justice Lalit 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.
\nThe new CJI specialises in criminal law and has conducted trials as the Crime Branch India\u2019s (CBI) public prosecutor in all 2G matters. He also served as a member of the Supreme Court\u2019s Legal Services Committee for two terms.
\nJustice Lalit was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court in August 2014 from the Bar, the report stated, adding that he was the second Chief Justice to be directly elevated to the Supreme Court from the Bar.
\nNDTV said that Justice Lalit had been part of \u201cmany important cases and delivered some landmark judgements\u201d, the most notable being the Triple Talaq verdict, in the case of the Travancore royal family\u2019s claim of management rights of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala and a judgement on the law involving sexual offences against children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DEHLI Uday Umesh Lalit was sworn in on Saturday as India\u2019s Chief Justice for the Supreme Court, though he is only set to hold the post for 74 days before his retirement falls due in November. Under India\u2019s constitution, Supreme Court justices are required to retire aged 65 years. The chief justice is appointed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-279963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n