New Delhi, November 11
A PIL plea for banishing the continued use of “my lord and your lordship” to address the judges came up for hearing in the Supreme Court today, but no arguments could be advanced as Justice Ranjan Gogoi, sitting alongside Chief Justice P Sathasivam, opted out of the case.

The PIL would now be posted before another Bench. Justice Gogoi did not given any reason for his recusal.

The petition, filed by advocate Shiv Sagar Tiwari, has pleaded that he had approached the SC as his efforts to get rid of these expressions, which were nothing but the legacy of the British Raj, had failed to yield any result. The Bar Council of India (BCI), the apex body of lawyers in the country, had adopted a resolution far back in 2006 under the Advocates Act 1961 restraining advocates from using such expressions which was notified in the official Gazette on May 6, 2006.

However, this practice was continuing in the SC, several high courts and trial courts. The petitioner said he had also given representations to the SC Bar Association and the CJI but to no avail. The PIL pleaded for a direction to all the SC and HC judges not to accept such expressions.

Contending that the use of the expression, lordship, was nothing but a sign of slavery, the petitioner pleaded that barring the god almighty nobody on earth could be “my lord,” what to say of the judges. The BCI had allowed the advocates to address the HC and SC judges as “your honour” and lower court judges as “sir,” but nobody was following it, he lamented.