"You may call me 'Sir':" Kerala High Court judge says 'Lordship' not necessary

The proceedings before Kerala High Court judge Justice Devan Ramachandran on Friday witnessed an interesting exchange between the judge and a young lawyer, with the judge assuring the lawyer that she may address him as 'Sir', instead of the usual honorifics 'My Lord' and 'Your Lordship' used during court proceedings in High Courts and the Supreme Court.

The lawyer relatively young at the Bar, was arguing for the petitioner in a matter under the Registration Act when she accidentally addressed the judge as 'Sir' and immediately apologised.

Justice Ramachandran shook off the apology.

"It is okay, you can call me 'Sir'," he said.

At the beginning of the hearing, Justice Ramachandran asked the lawyer, why her name was printed in a much smaller font size on the plea, especially when compared to her senior's name.

"Why is your name so small on the plea? Please tell your Senior to make it the same size as his name. You are not smaller than them," the judge said.

Having been elevated from the Bar after 25 years of practice as a lawyer, the judge is well known among lawyers for being a votary of the Bar and the Bench operating on an equal footing.

Justice Ramachandran is also the latest to join a gradually-growing list of High Court judges to assure lawyers that they have no objection to abandoning the long-standing colonial traditions that continue to characterise the Indian judiciary.

In July 2021, a Madras High Court Bench of then Chief Justice Sanjib Banerji and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy assured a lawyer that the Court is comfortable being addressed as 'sir.'

Other Judges have made it more official by appending notes to their causelists or expressly requesting lawyers to refrain from using colonial honorifics.

Earlier this year, Justice Jyoti Mulimani of the Karnataka High Court requested all counsel to address her simply as "Madam" through a note added to her causelist, months after Justice Krishna Bhat requested lawyers appearing before his court to avoid using terms such as 'Lordship' and 'My Lord to address Judges on the Bench. Justice Bhat had gone on to suggest that lawyers could use phrases such as 'Sir', which is consistent with the dignity of the Court under Indian circumstances.

Last year, former Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan, through a communication addressed on his behalf by the Registrar General, had also urged all officers of the District Judiciary, including members of the Registry, to address the Chief Justice only as 'Sir' in conformity with the applicable judicial and administrative precedents.

Back in 2019, a full-Court of the Rajasthan High Court resolved to do away with the practice of referring to judges as “My Lord” and “Your Lordship”.

A similar observation was made by the Supreme Court itself way back in 2014. A PIL moved by an advocate, Shiv Sagar Tiwari to do away with the practice of addressing judges as “Your Lordship” and “My Lord”, had prompted a Bench of Justices HL Dattu and SA Bobde to point out that it was not compulsory to address the Court as “My Lord”, “Your Lordship” or even “Your Honour”.

While dismissing the PIL, the Bench said,

“When did we say it is compulsory? You can only call us in a dignified manner…. “How can this negative prayer be accepted by us? Don’t address us as “lordship”. We don’t say anything. We only say address us respectfully.”