Man Or Woman, A Judge Should Be Addressed As ‘Sir’ Rather Than ‘My Lord’ Or ‘Your Honour’: Gujarat HC Chief Justice Sonia Gokani

Chief Justice Gokani was prompted to make the remark after an advocate repeatedly addressed the bench led by Chief Justice Gokani (and also consisting of Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt) as ‘Your Ladyship’ during the hearing of a case.

Now, when the bench pointed out that the advocate should be addressing and acknowledging both the judges, the lawyer apologized to the bench as he said that it was never his intention to address only one judge of the bench. He also added that he should have addressed the bench as ‘Your lordships’.

“Many a times, in the General Clauses Act, we say he includes she; sometimes she includes he also…We believe it should be either ‘sir’ or ‘madam’... It should be sir. That is the right way of doing it rather than ‘Milord’ or ‘Your honour’. So let it be gender neutral,” Chief Justice Gokani said.

To this, Senior Advocate Mihir Thakore also said that the term ‘Her Ladyship’ was not the correct way to address a woman judge and technically, it should be ‘My lady’.

In response to this, Chief Justice Gokani recalled that once there was a discussion in the National Judicial Academy that what should be the right way to address the Judges as they believed that ‘Your Lord’ was too feudalistic, when the former Chief Justice, SJ Mukhopadhyay said that most of the advocates had already switched to ‘Sir’