The Bombay High Court has ruled that civilian honors such as the Bharat Ratna and Padma Awards cannot be used as prefixes or suffixes to recipients' names. Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan stated that these awards are not official titles and their use in such a manner lacks legal basis. The court cited a 1995 Supreme Court judgment reinforcing that these national honors do not confer titles and should not precede or follow an individual's name, emphasizing the binding nature of this legal precedent.