Rajendra Mal Lodha

Rajendra Mal Lodha (born 28 September 1949) was the 41st Chief Justice of Supreme Court of India. Before being elevated to the Supreme Court of India, Lodha served as the Chief Justice of Patna High Court.^[1] He has also served as a Judge in Rajasthan High Court and Bombay High Court.

Early life

Lodha was born to Justice S. K. Mal Lodha, a former Judge of Rajasthan High Court. He took B.Sc. degree from Jodhpur University and then pursued LL.B. from there itself. In February 1973, he got enrolled with the Bar council of Rajasthan and started practice at Jodhpur. He shifted to Jaipur in the year 1977 on formation of Jaipur Bench of the Rajasthan High Court.^[2]

Career

Lodha practised at the Rajasthan High Court dealing with all branches of law primarily in constitutional, civil, company, criminal, taxation, labour etc. He was appointed as Central Government standing counsel, making him in-charge of entire litigation of Union of India at the Jaipur Bench of the Rajasthan High Court from the year 1990 to 1992. He represented Rajasthan High Court in important matters as Special Counsel. He argued many important cases on behalf of number of Government bodies, Semi-Government bodies, Public Authorities like the Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation, Rajasthan Text Book Board, Rajasthan Agricultural Marketing Board, Bharatpur Central Co-operative Bank, Rajasthan State Electricity Board, New India Assurance Company, Oriental Insurance Company, Kendriya Vidyalaya etc. Lodha was Member of Committee & at present has been appointed as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India.

As a Judge

On 31 January 1994, Lodha was elevated from bar to the post of permanent judge of Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur. On 16 February 1994, he was transferred to Bombay High Court. As a Judge of the Bombay High Court for thirteen years, he sat on almost all jurisdictions. He was again re-transferred to the Rajasthan High Court and on 2 February 2007, he re-assumed the office as a judge there. On 13 May 2008 he was appointed as the Chief Justice of Patna High Court. He is known for high degree of speed and disposal of cases.^[3]

On 17 December 2008 Chief Justice of India K. G. Balakrishnan swore-in Justice Lodha as a judge of the Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court bench of Lodha.

Chief Justice of India

He has been appointed as the Chief Justice of India working on 11 April and has assumed his charge on April 27, 2014.^[4] Justice Lodha said that infusing greater transparency in the appointment of judges and initiating steps to bring down the staggering backlog of 3.3 crore cases will be among his priorities. He slammed the Centre for the negligible annual outlay for the Supreme Court, amounting to between 0.4 and 0.11 per cent of budgetary spend in recent times^[5] In May, 2014, he proposed to make Indian judiciary work throughout the year (instead of the present system).

Other positions held

List of other positions held by him are :^[6]

• Chairman, State Judicial Academy, Rajasthan.
• Executive Chairman, National Legal Services Authority.
• Chairman, General Council, Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar
• President, Supreme Court [Middle Income Group] Legal Aid Society.
• Chairperson, Advisory Committee, National Court Management Systems
• Chancellor, National Law School of India University, Bangalore
• Chancellor, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata

References

External links

• Profile page for Chief Justice of India Hon'ble Mr. Justice RM Lodha

Chief Justices of India H. J. Kania M. Patanjali Sastri Mehr Chand Mahajan Bijan Kumar Mukherjea Sudhi Ranjan Das Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha P. B. Gajendragadkar Amal Kumar Sarkar Koka Subba Rao Kailas Nath Wanchoo Mohammad Hidayatullah Jayantilal Chhotalal Shah Sarv Mittra Sikri Ajit Nath Ray Mirza Hameedullah Beg Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati Raghunandan Swarup Pathak Engalaguppe Seetharamiah Venkataramiah Sabyasachi Mukharji Ranganath Misra Kamal Narain Singh Madhukar Hiralal Kania Lalit Mohan Sharma Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi Jagdish Sharan Verma Madan Mohan Punchhi Adarsh Sein Anand Sam Piroj Bharucha Bhupinder Nath Kirpal Gopal Ballav Pattanaik V. N. Khare S. Rajendra Babu Ramesh Chandra Lahoti Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal K. G. Balakrishnan S. H. Kapadia Altamas Kabir P. Sathasivam Rajendra Mal Lodha H. L. Dattu (Incumbent)