The Supreme Court collegium headed by Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha on Wednesday cleared the elevation of senior advocate Uday Lalit as a Supreme Court judge along with the elevation of three Chief Justices of High Courts, including one woman judge.
The collegium, which included Justices H.L. Dattu, T.S. Thakur, Anil R. Dave and C.K. Prasad, approved Mr. Lalit’s elevation in place of the former Solicitor-General, Gopal Subramanium, who withdrew his consent after the Centre opposed his elevation.
Besides Mr. Lalit, others to be elevated are: Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court Prafull Chandra Pant; Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court Abhay Manohar Sapre and Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court R. Banumathi. Highly placed sources told The Hindu that recommendations would be sent to the Union Law Ministry in a couple of days.
Mr. Lalit, who hails from Maharashtra, joined the Bar in June 1983 and has been practising in the apex court since 1986. He worked with the former Attorney-General, Soli J. Sorabjee, from 1986 to 1992. He has appeared in a number of leading criminal cases including the one against Hasan Ali Khan, the Pune businessman accused of money laundering. He has also appeared for the former Gujarat Home Minister, Amit Shah, in the fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati. He was appointed Special Public Prosecutor in 2011 for 2G scam cases. He will have a tenure of about seven years as SC judge.
Justice Pant, who hails from the then undivided Uttar Pradesh, became a judge of the Uttarakhand High Court in 2004. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court from September 2013. He will have a brief tenure of little over three years.
Justice Sapre, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, became a judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 1999; he was transferred to the Rajasthan High Court in February 2010 and then functioned as judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court from April 2012 to March 2013. He will have a tenure of over five years.
Justice Banumathi entered the Tamil Nadu Higher Judicial Service in 1988 as a direct recruit ‘District Judge’. She was elevated as judge of the Madras High Court on April 3, 2003 and elevated as Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court in November 2013. She will have a tenure of over six years.
