Justice UU Lalit and his wife Amita, with their sons and daughter-in-law.
New Delhi:
As the 49th Chief Justice of India, Uday Umesh Lalit will have no shortage of challenges – from the key constitutional question appoints judges – but he will also have a century of personal legacy, to draw upon.
The Lalit family from Maharashtra has been around for 102 years and keeps growing. His grandfather, Ranganath Lalit, was a lawyer in Solapur before India’s independence. On Saturday, when Justice UU Lalit is sworn in as CJI, three generations of his family will be present.
His 90-year-old father, Umesh Ranganath Lalit, will be there. The veteran served as a senior court judge after a long career as an advocate in his home state.
Also present will be Justice Lalit’s wife, Amita Lalit, who runs a school in Noida, and their two sons, Harshad and Shreeyash. While both sons studied engineering, Shreeyash Lalit later turned to law. His wife Raveena is also a lawyer. Harshad Lalit works as a researcher and lives in America with his wife Radhika.
Such a family legacy did not bring immediate success to UU Lalit. When he first arrived in Delhi in the 1980s – after transferring from Bombay High Court – he lived in a two-room apartment in Mayur Vihar, a working-class neighborhood.
Criminal cases quickly became his forte, and he became a designated Senior Advocate in the Supreme Court.
One of the famous cases in which he appeared was the 2G spectrum allocation case, in which the court appointed him as a Special Prosecutor.
In August 2014, he was made a Supreme Court judge directly from a lawyer. He is only the second such judge to become a CJI.
However, his term will be quite short, only 74 days.
Besides problem on the benchhe will head the university appointing judges nationwide.
