NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday directed its registry to treat as representation a PIL seeking use of smaller A-4 sheets for filing petitions instead of the larger legal size paper to prevent wastage and save trees.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan appreciated the issue raised by the petitioner and said that it would be taken up by the high court's rule making committee and an administrative decision would be taken.
It directed the registry to treat the plea, by advocate Namrata Mukim, as a representation and to place it before the committee.
With the direction, the bench disposed of the plea.
Mukim said in her petition that only one side of legal size paper was being used at present, with double space printing and an inner margin of about four centimeters on the top and left side, for filing writs in the high court.
She contended that this system of filing was leading to wastage of paper and suggested use of the smaller A-4 size paper with printing on both sides, one and half line spacing and four centimeter margin on left and right sides and 2 centimeter margin on top and bottom, to save paper.
She said the this form of filing has been adopted by the Supreme Court by way of an order dated March 5 and it was cost efficient, pocket friendly and environment friendly.
In the high court, the courts dealing with suits and other matters falling in the original jurisdiction were using A-4 size paper, but those dealing with writ petitions were still using legal size paper, the petition had said and contended that this makes the legal system non-uniform.
It had also contended that the use of one side of legal size paper was a "colonial era practice" which need not be followed any longer.