BMC spent Rs.106 crore on court cases in 13 years

Mumbai, March 6 (IANS) The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, India's richest civic body, spent Rs.106 crore in 13 years to fight big and small court cases, a RTI query revealed Friday.

The cases mainly pertained to illegal constructions around the city, and other litigation, with a single lawyer, K.K. Singhvi, being paid Rs.19.13 crore as fees for his services, the RTI query filed by prominent activist Anil Galgali said.

He had sought the details of the legal expenditure incurred by the BMC, the expenses on lawyers' fees and total number of cases being fought by them.

Replying to Galgali's query, the deputy law officer of the BMC Law Department said that between 2001-2014, the civic body had engaged 151 lawyers and paid them nearly Rs.106 crore as fees.

Among the top lawyers hired by the BMC are K.K. Singhvi (Rs.19.13 crore as fees), Anil Sakhre (Rs.10.58 crore), the late G.E. Vahanvaty (Rs.4.90 crore), E.P. Bharucha (Rs.4.28 crore) and S.U. Kamdar (Rs.3.65 crore).

The top 10 lawyers from among the 151 engaged by BMC together accounted for a payment of Rs.51.88 crore - or a whopping 49.37 percent of the total amounts (Rs.106 crore) paid.

Interestingly, Galgali said 21 lawyers or law firms fell in the crore-pati bracket (in terms of fees paid by BMC in excess of one crore rupees) fighting the BMC cases.

"The BMC did not reply to my other important query on the total number of court cases being fought along with the fees paid to the lawyers. The law department said such a record is not available with them," Galgali told IANS.

He explained that this information would help throw light on the capability and performance of the individual lawyers and whether they represented the BMC forcefully or not in the courts.

Galgali observed that instead of incurring such huge legal expenses, the BMC should open a dialogue with the litigants to prevent unnecessary and time-consuming litigation, besides saving public money.