NEW DELHI: Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, who is next in line to become the Chief Justice of India remarked that Courts could start early by 9 am. “In my view, ideally we should sit at 9 in the morning. If children can go to school at seven in the morning, why cannot judges and lawyers start their day at 9 am,” Supreme Court judge Justice UU Lalit remarked on Friday.

A bench of Justices Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat, and Sudhanshu Dhulia started Friday's work at 9.30 am, an hour earlier than the usual working hour of the apex court.

Justice Lalit said if the courts can start early, it can finish the day's work early and judges would get more time in the evening to read the case files for the next day. "The courts can start their work at 9 am and rise at 11.30 am for a half an hour break and then finish the day's work by 2 pm. By doing this, judges will get more time to do more things in the evening”, Justice Lalit said, adding this arrangement could work when there are only fresh matters and cases that don't require lengthy hearings.

The remark came after senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing in one of the bail matters, lauded the bench at the end of the hearing of the case for sitting earlier than the usual time. Normally the judges of the Supreme Court hear cases from 10:30 am to 4 pm on weekdays.

Chief Justice of India NV Ramana is set to retire on August 26 and Justice Lalit will take over charge from him and remain in office till November 8, this year. Lalit J will be the 49th Chief Justice of India. His is the second-shortest tenure among the next nine CJIs, lasting for just 2.5 months. After him, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud will become the 50th Chief Justice of India as per SC rules. He is likely to serve a tenure of two years. (with inputs from PTI)

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