Guwahati: Justice Uday Umesh Lalit took the oath necessary to become the 49th Chief Justice of India on Saturday.
Justice Lalit was sworn in by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Justice NV Ramana, who retired on August 26, was replaced by CJI Lalit.
Justice Lalit has pledged to uphold a transparent system in which any pressing cases may be freely brought before the appropriate benches of the highest court.
He guaranteed that the Supreme Court would have at least one Constitution Bench operating all year round.
Justice Lalit said, “The role of the Supreme Court is to lay down law with clarity and consistency, and the best possible way to do it is to have larger benches as early as possible, wherever the matters are referred to such benches so that the issues get clarified immediately, the matter has consistency, and the people are well aware of what exactly are the contours of the peculiar positions in law,” ANI reported.
On his last day of employment, outgoing CJI Ramana expressed regret for not being able to list all the outstanding cases and claimed that the court had been battling a backlog of cases that had rapidly increased during the previous months.
Justice Lalit was a well-known senior attorney prior to being appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court. He was chosen to serve as a Supreme Court justice on August 13, 2014.
Justice Lalit will be the second Chief Justice of India to be promoted from the bar directly to the Supreme Court bench. The first attorney to be promoted directly to the top court bench was Justice SM Sikri, who took over as the 13th Chief Justice of India in January 1971.