Colonial Accents in a Democratic Courthouse: Criticizing the Mandatory Use of Honorifics in Criminal Procedures
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I. Introduction
The evolving landscape of post-colonial jurisprudence has consistently emphasized the necessity of purging anachronistic, feudal traditions from democratic legal systems. In a republic governed by a constitutional promise of egalitarianism, the language employed within judicial and administrative machineries serves as a powerful indicator of societal structure. When a legal framework transitions from a colonial apparatus designed to enforce subjugation to a democratic one built upon popular sovereignty, ceremonial forms must mirror this ideological shift. However, recent judicial trends, most notably exemplified by the decision of the Allahabad High Court in Harshit Sharma v. State of U.P. (2026), run counter to this trajectory. By mandating the explicit inclusion of the honorific "Hon'ble" when referencing constitutional functionaries within First Information Reports (FIRs), the ruling reinstates formal hierarchies into the bedrock of criminal procedures, creating a troubling precedent that demands critical academic scrutiny.
II. The Legal Construct of the Controversy
The core of the legal controversy rests upon the procedural sanctity and purpose of a First Information Report under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (now governed under corresponding provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita). An FIR is fundamentally a factual, contemporaneous record of an alleged offense, dictated or written by an informant. Its primary legal utility is to set the criminal justice machinery in motion, acting as a neutral historical marker rather than a ceremonial document.
In the Harshit Sharma case, the court determined that failing to prepend official names with "Hon'ble" when referencing individuals holding constitutional offices—such as Members of Parliament, ministers, or members of the judiciary—constituted an affront to the dignity of those offices. The court rationalized that formal etiquette must be strictly observed within state-maintained police documents to preserve the institutional authority of the republic's functionaries. This rationale, while aiming to safeguard institutional respect, introduces a severe doctrinal friction between ceremonial protocol and the objective reality of criminal procedure.
III. Constitutional Contradictions: Articles 14 and 18
The most prominent vulnerability of this judicial directive lies in its apparent conflict with the egalitarian mandates of the Indian Constitution, specifically Articles 14 and 18. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws to all persons within the territory of India. This principle demands that within the matrix of the criminal justice system, every individual—whether a private citizen, an accused person, or a public official—must stand on an identical procedural footing. Mandating the use of honorifics for a specific class of citizens within an FIR introduces an artificial status distinction into a process that is supposed to be entirely status-blind. It creates a linguistic caste system within the case diary, visually and conceptually elevating the profile of an individual based entirely on their state office.
Furthermore, this practice cuts sharply against the democratic spirit of Article 18, which abolished titles to eradicate the social stratification characteristic of British rule and the preceding princely states. While Article 18 explicitly targets formal state-conferred titles (such as Rai Bahadur or Sir), its underlying constitutional purpose was to foster an undivided, horizontal citizenship. By judicially enforcing the use of "Hon'ble" under threat of procedural invalidity or administrative penalty, the state effectively creates a mandatory title by proxy. It transforms a courtesy into a legal compulsion, rebuilding the very walls of exceptionalism that the framers of the Constitution sought to dismantle.
IV. The Colonial Lineage of Feudal Deference
To comprehend the regression inherent in mandating honorifics, one must trace the historical lineage of terms like "Hon'ble," "Your Lordship," and "My Lord." These linguistic artifacts were carefully cultivated by the Victorian British administrative and judicial models to achieve a specific psychological effect: the enforcement of psychological distance and unquestioning deference between the colonizer and the colonized. In a colonial system, power was concentrated in a remote, infallible crown, and the local agents of that crown required an aura of untouchable prestige to govern effectively without majoritarian consent.
In stark contrast, a modern constitutional democracy shifts the locus of sovereignty entirely to the citizenry. Public officials, including judges and legislators, are not rulers demanding obeisance; they are constitutional trustees holding temporary mandates to serve the public. The supreme authority belongs to the people, as declared in the Preamble's opening invocation, "We, the People." Therefore, enforcing colonial-era linguistic protocols within police records misinterprets the dynamic of democratic power. It prioritizes the comfort of the officeholder over the civic standing of the citizen, running directly counter to decades of progressive jurisprudence from the Supreme Court of India aimed at decolonizing legal vocabulary and democratizing the courtroom environment.
V. Practical and Procedural Distortions
Beyond its theoretical and constitutional shortcomings, the mandatory application of honorifics inflicts severe practical and procedural harm upon the functioning of the criminal justice system. First, it introduces an administrative burden on an already strained and under-resourced police force. Under this rule, a station house officer or an investigating officer can no longer merely record the raw, unfiltered narrative of an informant. Instead, the police must act as an editorial board, cross-checking the employment or constitutional status of every individual named in a complaint to ensure compliance with judicial etiquette. A failure to perform this stylistic verification could expose the officer to disciplinary action or the charge sheet to judicial reprimand, diverting critical focus away from the actual investigation of crime.
Second, and perhaps more alarmingly, this mandate interferes with the authentic voice of the informant. An FIR is meant to be a record of what the witness or victim experienced, expressed in their own words. If an ordinary citizen intentionally or textually chooses not to use a title when naming a politician or an official—whether out of vernacular habit, lack of education, or conscious political expression—the police are now legally compelled to alter or edit that narrative. Forcing the state to inject honorifics into a citizen’s private complaint compromises the factual neutrality of the document, prioritizing cosmetic deference over procedural accuracy.
VI. Reconceptualizing Institutional Dignity
The foundational error of the argument for mandatory honorifics is a deep misunderstanding of what constitutes true "dignity" in a constitutional republic. The authority and respect commanded by an institution do not depend on the specific prefixes attached to the names of its officers in a police blotter. Rather, institutional dignity is earned and preserved through the integrity, transparency, accessibility, and fairness of its substantive actions. A court commands respect through the justice of its rulings; a legislature commands respect through the wisdom and equity of its laws.
The dignity of a constitutional office is an intrinsic quality derived directly from the diligent performance of its public duties and its fidelity to the Constitution. It is not an external privilege that must be extracted from the populace through police drafts or linguistic mandates. To make dignity dependent on the forced usage of honorifics reduces a profound constitutional value into a mere matter of bureaucratic vanity.
VII. Conclusion
The Allahabad High Court's ruling in Harshit Sharma v. State of U.P. stands as an unfortunate doctrinal anomaly that threatens to pull Indian legal proceduralism back into its colonial past. In a mature democracy, criminal investigations and state records must remain completely blind to social and political status. The language of our legal system should reflect the egalitarian values of our constitutional foundation, rather than maintaining the feudal hierarchies of a bygone era.
For these reasons, it is highly desirable that the Supreme Court of India reviews this issue on appeal. A definitive ruling from the apex court is necessary to clearly separate ceremonial court etiquette from actual criminal procedure. By striking down mandatory linguistic hierarchies in state documents, the judiciary can ensure that the Indian legal system remains fully aligned with its core democratic principles, preserving a legal space where every citizen stands as an equal.
