Civic body’s law committee chairman says the BMC uses these counsels’ services as its own lawyers are stuck with routine clerical work due to a shortage of stenographers and clerks
BMC, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, 186 lawyers, legal counsellors, Rs 60 crore expenditure, Mumbai news, Mumbai
They are known as individuals who fight for justice. But what happens when they are compelled to do clerical work and are reduced to stenographers, clerks and filing clerks? This is the fate of around 100-odd lawyers of the Brihanmumbai Muncipal Corporation (BMC). As a result, the civic body has spent as much as R60 crore over the last five years to hire 186 legal eagles from external law firms.
According to data provided by the Law Department, BMC hired 186 counsellors for all courts (Supreme Court to Lower Court) and 4,524 cases were allotted to them over the last five years
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Despite having enough legal staff to fight their cases, the BMC is spending a chunk of public money on hiring lawyers. Corporators have slammed the civic body’s law department and questioned the BMC about “unexplained” hiring of these 186 counsellors. Even hiring so much reputed counsel has not served the purpose, as most of the cases are still pending.
Law Committee Chairman, advocate Gyanmurti Sharma said, “Unfortunately, our law department lacks competent lawyers as the hiring process is not up to the mark. This compels us to rely on outside lawyers who have to represent us. If our lawyers had enough time to prepare for cases they would represent us in court.”
He continued, “The BMC uses these counsels’ services because our lawyers are stuck with doing routine clerical work due to shortage of stenographers, clerks, filing clerks and the administration doesn’t understand the necessity of the clerical staff.”
Despite having enough legal staff to fight their cases, the Brihanmumbai Muncipal Corporation (BMC) is spending public money on hiring lawyers. File pic
This startling fact came to light after Shiv Sena corporator Ramakant Rahate sought information from the BMC’s law department five months ago to provide data of the last five years of the number of counsellors hired by BMC. According to data given by Law Department this month, BMC hired 186 counsellors for all courts (Supreme Court to Lower Court) and 4,524 cases have been given to them. Out of these 2,023 cases are still pending and 1,429 cases have been disposed.
Rahate alleged, “Often advocates from our law department ‘intentionally’ skip the dates when they are supposed to be present in courts. This leads to several cases pending and indirectly benefits the opposite party. I had asked the civic body to give names of all the private counsellor whose services have been used but they didn't provide that data.”
When contacted, BMC’s law officer Ujwala Deshpande denied to comment on the issue.
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