Law is a big waste of paper! 11 Billion sheets in a year. How?




The author of this article Silvy Sheetal  is a Law Student at University Law College, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.


One of the great strengths of the Indian state is the independence of its judiciary. Judges have generally not been hesitant to strike down actions of the executive or the legislature when these actions have been in violation of the constitution.  It is a remarkable achievement of Indian liberal democracy.[1] Every year, over 60,000 cases are presented before the Supreme Court of India. Each document in each case has to be filed in a specific format. For example, each document can only be typed in a 13-14 font size. They must also have a 3cm margin and be double-spaced. Apparently, the colonial legacy left behind where due to low paper and ink quality, the ink printed on one side of the paper would seep on to the other side, making reading difficult.  According to the Quint the amount of paper used in the Supreme Court alone in a year, in accordance with estimation by IndiaSpendeach case requires 8 sets of files, and each file has about 100 pieces of paper. So, the paper used just by the SC in a year is 60,000x 8x 100= 48 MILLION PAPERS (Approx). [2]

Calculations Elaborated:
The petitions highlight large-scale paper consumption--double-spaced typing and wide margins--in courts. “Using line spacing as 1.5 instead of 2 causes 25% savings of paper. Similarly, using smaller fonts cause 30% savings of paper,” the petitions said. Courts use paper printed on one side because of official formats and a tradition that dates to the years of typewriters, which are still used in many courts. Paper products make up the largest component of municipal solid waste,” the petitions said. “India is one of the biggest waste-creators, and more than one lakh metric tonne of waste paper is generated every day. Only 27% of waste paper is used in India, indicating that the remaining 73% is discarded unused.”Across India, 1,504,528 cases were filed--including subordinate courts (1,391,426) and high courts (113,102) --between July 4, 2018 and August 4, 2018. Using paper printed on both sides would have saved 27,083 trees and 2,257 million liter water--nearly 58% of Mumbai's daily water supply requirement (3,900 million liters per day).[3] Adding such calculative information’s from leading sources accentuates the brevity of the menace.

Major PIL’s filed and Solutions Directed:

Now, this is not to say that these papers are useless and used without any reason, but the number of options can be minimized to use paper so that its usage can be brought down drastically which seeks for a coordinated mechanism on the part of the Government, Judges, advocates, court officers, etc.
     Public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the SC by CASC on September 5, 2018, seeking directions to use paper printed on both sides in pleadings and filings before the apex court.
·         Another PIL, filed on August 8, 2018, in the Delhi High Court by CASC--with the above objective--said using paper printed on both sides would have saved over 27,000 trees and 2,000 million liters water based on the number of cases filed in one month before the subordinate courts and high courts across the country. At present, “legal size” paper, bigger than A-4 sheets, is used in the country’s courts. Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde had on January 14 directed the Supreme Court registry to use A4-size sheets printed on both sides for internal communications at all levels. A new circular dated March 5, which was uploaded on the apex court website on Thursday, said A4-size paper would be accepted on the judicial side from April 1, with required specifications. “It is notified for the information of all concerned that the Competent Authority has been pleased to direct that: With a view to bringing uniformity about the use of paper and printing thereon and to minimize consumption of paper and consequently to save the environment”, superior quality A4 size paper would be used, the circular said. [4]

Working Through Issued Guidelines:
The Supreme Court has taken several environment-friendly steps, issuing new guidelines regarding the use of papers and the procedures of filing new cases.
“With a view to bringing about uniformity in the issue of paper and printing thereupon and to minimize consumption of paper and consequently to save the environment” the apex court issued the following guidelines, a circular from the Secretary-general of the Supreme Court said. They are:
  1. Superior quality 75 GSM, A4 size paper is to be used with both sides being printed on       with the font being Times New Roman, font size 14 and one and a half line spacing with a margin of 4 cm on left and right and 2 cm on the top and bottom, in all the documents, to be filed in the Court.
  2. All the communications from the Registry will be sent to the concerned Advocates – on – Record through email, followed by an SMS alert on the registered mobile number of the concerned Advocate – on – Record. The practice of sending communication through hard copy is to be discontinued.
  3. The filing counter of the Registry following the existing procedure regarding fresh matters is allowed to accept Misc. Applications, Review Petitions, Curative Petitions and Contempt Petitions in disposed of matters in 1 set of original papers and 1 paperback and once the defects are cured the rest of the paper books shall be filed.
  4. A common index has been allowed to be placed in first volume in case there is more than one volume in a matter a separate index for each volume shall be placed.
The first and the second directions will come into force from 1st April and the rest will come into effect immediately.[5]



Conclusion:
 The reason behind adding such calculative information’s from leading sources to this blog  is to further, accentuate the brevity of the menace. Few points mentioned above can help a lot in saving the environment, avoiding environmental hazards and saving trees, before the disaster, spread its fangs. We, humans, have created technology for our use; we cannot become bondslave of our creations using earth’s natural resources instead think about giving back to the environment what we have taken from it. The statistics laid down, the information’s regarding its cure, elevated in writing can work as a brim of a light   to bring in the much-needed future changes in generalia.






[1] Working Paper No. 258, How to Modernise the Working of Courts and Tribunals in India, 25-March-2019, https://www.nipfp.org.in/media/medialibrary/2019/03/WP_2019_258.pdf
[2] https://www.thequint.com/news/india/indian-judiciary-uses-eleven-billion-papers-in-a-year-a-million-tress-and-hundred-and-nine-billion-litres-of-water
[3] https://www.indiaspend.com/printing-paper-on-both-sides-in-sc-cases-saving-2000-trees-24000-tankers-of-water-study/
[4] https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/supreme-court-of-india-cuts-size-of-paper-for-petitions-to-control-environmental-degradation/cid/1753277
[5] SC Guidelines To Cut Down Paper Use, India Legal, (March 12, 2020), https://www.indialegallive.com/top-news-of-the-day/news/sc-guidelines-cut-paper-use-92073.


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