NEW DELHI: Delhi High Court has heeded a suggestion of a woman district judge, which came a few years ago, and cleared a proposal on the use of gender-neutral terms in court-related documents. In a communication on Jan 15, the court administration told all district courts to replace the requirement of the father’s/husband’s name with that of the parent’s/spouse’s name. A missive from the registrar-general to all district judges heading the seven courts referred to letters from 2021 and 2022 “of Ms. Savita Rao, DHJS”. The letter said that the administrative and general supervision committee had directed that “necessary changes may be made in the official communication, forms and documents… so as to incorporate gender-neutral terms like spouse’s name and/or parent’s (mother/father’s) name, instead of providing only father’s/husband’s name”. The changes must be communicated to all the districts for action at their end, the letter said. Once implemented, the change is expected to show in personal files of judicial officers, the identity cards of court staff, their provident fund forms and medical claim cards, to give a few examples, a sitting judge said. In 2021, Rao, the in-charge of the Saket court mediation wing, flagged her views regarding the absence of any option for a litigant or a court staff member filling up a court form. “I am in receipt of official communications where there is only the option of providing father’s/husband’s name. The need of the current situation in empowering women, treating women with equality and equal rights, can be resolved only when the centuries-old Indian patriarchal system is dealt with by better law and procedure. Today, it is immensely needed that a woman has the freedom to choose her surname after marriage, and also to opt for providing either the father’s or the mother’s name, and for the children/men to carry their mother’s name as well,” Rao’s letter, addressed to the then district judge, said. Rao, now the district judge of the commercial court in Saket, pointed out that despite the nod from Delhi govt long ago to include the name of the mother in all official documents, no option was given in the documents as far as court-related work is concerned. “Women have to use either the husband’s/father’s name, and even the men have no option to use the name of their mothers, if they want to, instead of the father’s name, “with no consideration ever in mind” for the option to use wife’s name, she said. The insistence that women must provide the father’s/husband’s name, and that children/men must provide only the father’s name, reiterates the patriarchal norm that women and children are belongings. These norms look down upon alternative family structures, Rao added. The letter argued that judicial institutions are “the torchbearer for reforms in society”. Therefore, “it is probably high time that we also move away from such outdated thinking, ie insistence to provide only father’s/husband’s name,” the judge said. Rao urged the decisionmakers in the judiciary to make appropriate changes in correspondence, documents and forms to reflect the new social reality.
