A fresh Public Interest Litigation has been filed before the High Court of Allahabad seeking to implement the use of A4 sheets with double-sided printing instead of using legal size paper with one side printing, for filings in all UP courts.
Seven law students filed the PIL through their lawyers Sarveshwari Prasad, Ankur Azad, Rajesh Inamdar and Sashwat Anand.
This PIL is the second petition that was filed by the petitioners on the same issue. Earlier, they were directed to approach the Registrar General along with a demand notice on the Administrative side.
In the earlier petition, the High Court had granted them the liberty to invoke writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution upon inaction or refusal of the Registry.
During the hearing of the instant petition, the petitioners informed the Court they had served a demand notice as well as a Reminder notice upon the Registry, Allahabad High Court but have received no response.
According to the petitioners, the reason behind filing the PIL was to downsize environmental degradation by curbing excess and unnecessary use of paper which directly leads to cutting of trees, over-exploitation and depletion of forests and also leads to large scale pollution.
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They also pointed out that use of legal-sized paper with one side printing cost more than A4 size papers and the costs are borne by litigants, and it significantly affects litigants who come from impoverished backgrounds.
The petitioners drew the Court’s attention to the fact that the use of one-sided printing on foolscap/water-marked/legal-size paper was a colonial-era practice and was used on typewriters that allowed printing on only one side. They also stated that the foolscap/water-marked/legal-size paper was used to preserve the files for longer periods.
They have also sought that Allahabad High Court, Rules 1952 should be suitably amended to allow the use of A4 size papers, with printing on both the sides for all legal purposes across UP.
We want to remind our readers that the Supreme Court and High Courts of Karnataka, Kerala, Sikkim, Calcutta and Tripura have allowed the use of A4 size papers, with print on both sides to minimize the use of paper.
