Now, the civic body plans to pay lawyers only twice — at the time of admission of a case, and when the case is closed — win or lose
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will soon do away with the existing practice of paying lawyers even for adjournments. Now, the civic body plans to pay lawyers only twice — at the time of admission of a case, and when the case is closed — win or lose.
The civic body believes that this will prevent lawyers from unnecessarily prolonging a case, and charging for each appearance in court. At present, BMC has been fighting around 60,000 cases in various courts, from land-related cases to issue of employee promotion.
As per the new plan, for cases fought at the small causes court, a lawyer will be paid Rs 25,000 at the time of admission of the case. If BMC wins it, s/he will be paid Rs 50,000 and Rs 15,000 if it loses. "There will be no payment for dates or adjournments," said the official. Similarly, in other cases too, lawyers will be paid only twice.
"A proposal has already been prepared under the guidance of the civic chief, and soon it will be rolled out to make lawyers more accountable towards cases," said a senior official from BMC's legal department. He added that the civic body will discontinue the service of such counsels whose performance is found to be not at par.
According to an official, around 225 new lawyers will be brought under BMC's panel, and the process will begin soon. Of the total 225 lawyers, 100 lawyers will be fresh pass out LLB students. "We want to give an opportunity to fresh LLBs to start their career with BMC," said the official. He added fresh lawyers will be assigned cases small causes court.
However, the civic body will also bring lawyers with experience of five to 10-15 years for important cases.
The Bombay High Court had recently slammed the BMC for assigning inefficient lawyers on important cases. The civic chief Ajoy Mehta had informed the court that the BMC is in the process of bringing more lawyers under the civic body's panel.
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