During a case hearing in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, Justice Rekha Palli was constantly referred to as 'sir' by the lawyer.
Following this led to an interesting exchange between the lawyer and Justice Rekha Palli.
According to a report by LiveLaw, Justice Rekha Palli objected to the lawyer addressing her as sir.
She said, "I am not Sir. I hope you can make that out."
Following which the lawyer apologised and told, "Sorry, it is because of the Chair you are sitting in."
This reply from the lawyer prolonged the conversation even further. Justice Rekha stated that the chair is not for 'sirs' alone.
"Then that's even worse if after all this time you think that the Chair is for Sirs. If the younger members don't stop differentiating, then what hope do we have for the future?" Justice Rekha said.
There has always been an imbalance in the gender ratio in the judiciary system in the country. Where one could only come across few female judges in the Indian courts.
In 2021, an organisation of women lawyers filed a PIL wanting for more appointments of women judged in the courts across the country.
In the PIL it was mentioned that The High Courts of Gauhati, Himachal, Jammu & Kashmir; Ladakh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan and Sikkim had only one female Judge. The cases were much worse in others states like Manipur, Meghalaya, Patna, Tripura and Uttarakhand where the High Courts did not even have a single female judge.