Petition in Supreme Court Against 'Your Lordship' 'My Lord'
A practising advocate of the Supreme Court has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to do away with the practice of addressing judges as "Your Lordship" and "My Lord". The Petitioner pleads that the use of "Your Lordship" and "My Lord" to address judges are relics of British colonial past and amounted to a "disgrace and dishonour of the country".
He prayed for a writ of Mandamus, "directing all judges of the Supreme Court, High Courts and other Judicial Forums not to accept the word[s] My Lord or Your Lordship addressed by anyone appearing before them."
The matter came up for hearing yesterday before a Bench of the CJI and Justice Ranjan Gogoi. The petitioner said that another bench in which Justice Gogoi was a Member dismissed his case because he did not address the court as "Your Lordship". Justice Gogoi said he would not hear the matter and so the case is listed before another bench.
The eminent lawyer Fali Nariman mentions in his fascinating autobiography 'Before Memory fades…'
"… a city court judge and a district judge must be addressed as 'Your Honour', and (most important of all) a high court judge must always be addressed as 'Your Lordships' (believe me, the judges simply love it). Years ago, I appeared before a judge who had just been' elevated' from the city civil court to the high court, and was particular about how he should hence forth be addressed. My opponent who had appeared before him in the adjoining building, the city civil and sessions court, imagined he was still addressing a city court judge and went on calling him' Your Honour'. The judge grimaced at this indignity. My opponent had a good case. But he lost! Judges are human "
There are many advocates nowadays addressing Commissioners as "my lord" - and perhaps that helps.
Then how do you address a lady judge - 'my lord' doesn't really suit - but is it okay to call her, "my lady"?
Even judges call the Chief justices and judges of the Supreme Court as 'my lord' and 'your lordship' even in private conversation. And sometimes they call even the brother judge sitting in the same bench as 'his lordship'.
I used to correspond with a retired High Court judge and I used to address him 'My lord' and he used to address me 'Mr. Vijay Kumar'. I told him, 'you can call me Vijay'. He replied, 'if Vijay is in, My Lord is out'.