CJI Ramana names Justice U.U. Lalit as successor

CJI Ramana names Justice U.U. Lalit as successor

Subject: Polity

Section: Judiciary

Context: Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on Thursday, August 4, 2022 recommended to the government the name of Justice Uday Umesh Lalit as his successor and the 49th Chief Justice of India.

• The ‘Memorandum of Procedure of Appointment of Supreme Court Judges’ says “appointment to the office of the Chief Justice of India should be of the senior most Judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office”.
• The process, according to the Memorandum, begins with the Union Law Minister seeking the recommendation of the outgoing CJI about the next appointment.
• The Minister has to seek the CJI’s recommendation “at the appropriate time”. The Memorandum does not elaborate or specify a timeline.
• The Memorandum says that “after receipt of the recommendation of the Chief Justice of India, the Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs will put up the recommendation to the Prime Minister who will advise the President in the matter of appointment”.
• The Chief Justice of India and the Judges of the Supreme Court (SC) are appointed by the President under clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution.
• SC in the Second Judges Case (1993),ruled that the senior most judge of the Supreme Court should alone be appointed to the office of the CJI.
• The Supreme Court collegium is headed by the Chief Justice of India and comprises four other senior most judges of the court.
• The collegium system is the system of appointment and transfer of judges that has evolved through judgments of the Supreme Court (Judges Cases), and not by an Act of Parliament or by a provision of the Constitution.