BMC pays lawyers a shocking Rs 105 crores as fees in past 13 years

Mumbai: BMC paid lawyers Rs 105 crores as fees in past 13 years to fight cases against it in courts, issues pertaining to majorly illegal constructions and other litigations, this was revealed in a reply to RTI Activist Anil Galgali by the Law dept. The highest amount paid to a single lawyer is Rs 19 crores 13 lakhs 57000, paid to lawyer K K Singhvi.

RTI Activist Anil Galgali had filed an RTI query with with the BMC administration seeking information about the expenses incurred on lawyers fees and also record of total cases being represented by them. Law Dept's Dy law Officer (Small Causes Court) in a reply informed Galgali that, since 2001 to 2014 in the past 13 years, the BMC engaged 151 lawyers to represent them in courts and paid them Rs 105 crores 6 lakhs 84690 as fees. The top 10 lawyers who got the highest fees were K K Sanghvi 19 crores 13 lakhs 57 thousand Rs, Anil Sakhre Rs 10 crores 58 lakhs 51 thousand 5 hundred, G E Vahanvaty Rs 4 crores 90 lakhs 5 thousand 5 hundred, E P Bharucha 4 crores 28 lakhs 43 thousand 250, S U Kamdar Rs 3 crores 65 lakhs 77 thousand, Ramesh Bhat Rs 2 crores 63 lakhs 27 thousand 5 hundred, Pallav Sisodiya 2 crore 6 lakhs 34 thousand 350, J Rais 1 crore 85 lakhs 25 thousand 150, B L Chabbria 1 crore 80 lakhs 81 thousand, Subhash Vyas 1 crore 80 lakhs 47 thousand, which means that these top 10 lawyers cornered totally Rs 51 crores 88 lakhs 14 thousand 900 amongst them out of the total expenditure of 105 crores, which comes to a whopping 49.37% of the total expenses.

    # 21 Crorepati's lawyers

Representing the BMC total 21 lawyers have become crorepati's, apart from the top 10 the others are as follows K N Tawakullis (1,78,93,150), Atul Chitale (1,73,43,024), N V Walawalkar ( 1,68,29,000), Uday Lalit ( 1,64,69,970), D H Mehta ( 1,58,10,000), Ramchandra Apte (1,55,80,000), P K Pandit( 1,43,93,875), S S Pathak ( 1,42,69,320), Bhimrao Naik (1,24,61,000), Chitale & Chitale Partners ( 1,07,87,932), & Anil Singh ( 1,05,96,500).

RTI Activist Anil Galgali had also sought information about the quantum of court cases along with the fees paid, which was not provided with. The Law dept stated that, till now no such independent record is available with the law dept. Galgali stated that, since there is no information of cases wise lawyers details, the performance of the lawyers vis a vis the fees paid to them cannot be ascertained or understood. Hence Anil Galgali in a letter addressed to the Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte has advised that hence forth the BMC should maintain individual lawyers records of cases being represented by them, which will also enable us to understand the performance of those lawyers as well as also give us the insight on the ability of the lawyers to represent which kind of cases in forceful manner. Galgali also advised that the BMC should also try to have a dialogue with the litigants which if successful will save the BMC valuable time and money, which will bring down the cost of fees being paid to lawyers to fight the cases.