Lalit enrolled with the
Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa as an advocate in June 1983. He started his practice with advocate M.A. Rane, who was considered a proponent of the radical humanist school of thought who believed that social work was as important as building a solid legal practice. On 3 May 1992, Lalit qualified and was registered as an
Advocate-on-Record at the Supreme Court. On 29 April 2004, Lalit was designated as a senior advocate of the Supreme Court. In 2011, a Supreme Court bench of Justices
G. S. Singhvi and
Asok Kumar Ganguly appointed Lalit as the
special public prosecutor for the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the
2G spectrum cases, stating that "in the interest of a fair prosecution of the case, appointment of UU Lalit is eminently suitable". His professional strengths are described as 'thoroughness with the case, patience in explaining legal questions and the sober demeanour in presenting the case before the bench.
As a Supreme Court judge 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. He was appointed as a judge on 13 August 2014 and became only the sixth lawyer to be directly elevated to the Supreme Court. 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. He has also recused himself from multiple other high-profile cases. In May 2021, he was part of a bench which denied bail to
2018 Bhima Koregaon violence accused activist
Gautam Navlakha. 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. and under his tenure at least one constitutional bench functioned every day. 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. There had also been a decline in the pendency of cases from 70,301 on September 1 to 69,461 on October 1. The supreme court began live streaming constitutional bench proceedings under his tenure. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. ==References==