Justice UU Lalit to become fifth member of Supreme Court collegium

THE COLLEGIUM

With the retirement of Justice R Banumathi on July 19, Justice UU Lalit will become number five in the seniority of apex court judges and would automatically become part of the collegium entrusted with the task of selecting and recommending names of judges in the Supreme Court as well as the transfer of HC judgesw.e.f. July 20.

Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde and Justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra and R F Nariman are other members of the collegium.

Justice Bhanumathi was the second woman to be a component of this collegium after Justice Ruma Pal in the final 14 years.There will be another vacancy in the top court and in its collegium as Justice Mishra is set to retire this year on September 2. 

ABOUT JUSTICE UU LALIT

• Justice Lalit enrolled as an advocate in the year June,1983.
• He practiced in Bombay High Court till 1985 and then in 1986 shifted his practice to Delhi.
• He was then designated as Senior Advocate by Supreme Court in the year 2004. The top court had appointed him as the Special Public Prosecutor for the CBI to conduct trial in all 2G matters.
• He was directly made a judge of the Supreme court from the Bar on August 13, 2014.
• He will remain part of the collegium till he demits office as the CJI on November 8, 2022.
• He would succeed Justice Ramana as the CJI on November 27, 2022 and will have a tenure of a little over two months as the head of the judiciary.
• Justice Lalit has been part of several noticeable judgments. Recently, a division bench headed by him held that hat the Managership or the Shebaitship of Kerala’s famous Padmanabhaswamy Temple continued with the Royal Family.