Uday Umesh Lalit

In July 2014, the Supreme court collegium headed by then Chief Justice of India Rajendra Mal Lodha recommended his elevation to the Supreme Court as a judge.[18] He was appointed as a judge on 13 August 2014 and became only the sixth lawyer to be directly elevated to the Supreme Court.[11]

In 2017, he was part of the five-judge bench in the case against the unconstitutional nature of triple talaq, then being practiced by Indian Muslim men to divorce their wives by uttering the word "talaq" (divorce) three times. Along with Lalit, J S Khehar, Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, and Abdul Nazeer delivered the verdict banning the practice.[19]

On 10 January 2019, Justice Lalit recused himself from a five-judge bench constituted to hear the Ayodhya dispute case. His appearance for the erstwhile Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Singh in a 'connected case' was brought to the notice of the court by Rajeev Dhavan, and the court in its order noted the 'disinclination' of Justice Lalit to participate in the matter.[20] He has also recused himself from multiple other high-profile cases.[21]

In May 2021, he was part of a bench which denied bail to 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence accused activist Gautam Navlakha.[22]

He was part of the two-judge bench, along with Indu Malhotra, that upheld the Travancore royal family's right to administer the Padmanabhaswamy Temple on 13 July 2020.[23][6][11]

On 10 August 2022, the President of India Droupadi Murmu appointed him the 49th Chief Justice of India. He took oath as the chief justice on 27 August 2022 in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He is the second direct appointee from the Bar to be appointed as the Chief Justice of India.

Justice UU Lalit Taking Oath as the Chief Justice of India

Chief Justice Lalit's tenure despite being short had brought major administrative changes to the court, a frantic pace of work with each bench of judges having to deal with 60-70 cases per day. Over the years Supreme Court's number of constitution bench judgements fell dramatically from an average of 134 in the 1960s to just 2 in 2021, this has led to 53 such critical constitutional cases being left unheard and pending. To reverse this trend Chief Justice U. U Lalit announced that a constitution bench would hear 25 constitutional cases on his first day of office,[24] and under his tenure at least one constitutional bench functioned everyday. The cases heard include the legality of the Citizenship Amendment Act, validity of demonetisation, setting up of regional benches of the supreme court, the declaring of Muslims as a socially and educationally backward community in Andhra Pradesh, right to a dignified death, protection of jallikattu, etc.[25] There had also been a decline in the pendency of cases from 70,301 on September 1 to 69,461 on October 1.[26] The supreme court began live streaming constitutional bench proceedings under his tenure.[27] By the end of his tenure, the supreme court disposed of 10,000 cases while 8,700 cases were freshly filed which had resulted in a slight decrease in the pendency of cases and the court had set up 6 constitution benches.[28]

Chief Justice Lalit could only recommend one new judge to the Supreme Court, thus his proposal to recommend four more judges to the court, to fill the vacancies in the court, failed to get approval of the collegium over procedural differences arising out of the proposal being sent by circulation instead of being presented in a face to face meeting, as the meeting scheduled on September 30 couldn't take place as one of its members Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud was busy hearing cases until 9:10 PM.[29] As per procedure the Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju wrote to the Chief Justice on October 7 almost a month before his retirement, asking for his recommendations for the appointment of his successor, by convention once this letter is sent the collegium freezes and no new decisions like induction of new judges will be taken until the appointment of next Chief Justice.[30][31]

He was part of the dissenting opinion in the plea against the 103rd constitutional amendment which created 10% reservation for those designated to be part of the economically weaker section (EWS), the dissenting judges were of the view that the exclusion of SCs/STs, and OBCs from the quota was violation of equality and discriminatory, and that the judgement would act as a gateway to further infractions of the 50% ceiling set by the supreme court on reservation.[32]

The supreme court under his tenure gave pro-civil liberties judgements like giving bail to activist Teesta Setalvad and the journalist Sidheeq Kappan. However his role in the unprecedented urgent Saturday morning hearing of the appeal against the acquittal of UAPA accused G. N. Saibaba by the Bombay High Court came into question, as the chief justice being the "master of the roster" has the power to decide when cases are listed and which bench of judges hears them.[33]