Avoid 'My Lord', 'Your Lordship', 'Your Honour': Orissa High Court First Bench

The First Bench of the Orissa High Court headed by Chief Justice S Muralidhar has urged advocates and parties-in-person appearing before it to avoid using 'My Lord', 'Your Lordship', 'Your Honour' or the prefix 'Hon'ble' .

The Bench, which included Justice RK Pattanaik, said that the use of any other form of address, consistent with the decorum of the Court, including 'Sir', should suffice.

A note to this effect was made in the weekly causelist published on the Orissa High Court website.

Last year, Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi of the Punjab & Haryana High Court requested lawyers not to address him as 'Your Lordship' or 'My Lord' and to refrain from using terms such as 'obliged' and 'grateful' while arguing cases before him.

Justice Devan Ramachandran of the Kerala High Court had assured a lawyer that she may address him as 'Sir', instead of the usual honorifics 'My Lord' and 'Your Lordship' used during court proceedings in the higher judiciary.

The Bench of then Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy of the Madras High Court last year had asked lawyers to address judges as 'sir'.

In April last year, Justice Krishna Bhat of the Karnataka High Court had requested lawyers appearing before his Court to avoid using terms such as 'Lordship' or 'My Lord' to address the judges on the Bench. In June, Justice Jyoti Mulimani of the same High Court has become the second judge from the Court to urge lawyers to address her court as 'Madam'.

In July, 2020, Chief Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan of the Calcutta High Court urged against being addressed as 'My Lord' or 'Lordship' while being addressed in his capacity as a Judge.

In 2019, the Full Court of the Rajasthan High Court had resolved to do away with the practice of referring to judges as 'My Lord' and 'Your Lordship'.