MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Tuesday said it would pass orders on its administrative side on a PIL seeking use of A4 size papers printed on both sides with 1.5 spacing when filing petitions, affidavits and other pleadings and supporting documents in the HC.
At present the green ledger paper used for filing petitions and court documents is a longer size and it is not mandatory to have printing on both sides.
The Public interest litigation (PIL) by Sujay Joshi was on board before the HC bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni. The CJ asked that the registrar place it before him in his administrative head capacity.
“Using A4 size papers papers would in the long term, reduce issues relating to storage and digitization,’’ said Joshi’s lawyers Ranjit Shinde and Ajinkya Udane.
The PIL had made the HC registrar general a party. The focus of the petitioner, 31, an advocate since 2014 and a Pune resident was his concern for the environment and to prevent further damage to trees by excessive or surplus use of paper for physical filing of petitions and documents.
Joshi cited a March 2020 Supreme Court notification for guidelines in using A4 page filing and printing and also cited notifications issued by the High court of Tripura (Agartala) and Himachal Pradesh in March and April respectively as well as recent directives to conserve paper by using A4 size papers type written on both sides issued in September by the Kerala high court and as recently as October 6 by the Karnataka HC.
The PIL requested the HC to take “judicial notice of the fact that the HC faces an infrastructural issue and storage crunch for the record.” The Bombay HC has already undertaken scanning and digitization of old records of the HC and subordinate courts in Maharashtra
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/pil-seeks-use-of-a4-size-papers-in-bombay-hc-too-as-environment-friendly-move/articleshow/78773199.cms