JOIN USBBMP legal cell up against a mountain of cases
When the 99-year lease of a 17.5-acre government property given to St Joseph’s Cricket Club in the 1920s for Re 1 per year expired recently, there were only 4.5 acres of it left, and the name of the owner had changed. The rest of the property at the heart of the city near Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) head office now has many multistorey buildings and hotels.
There are 594 properties whose lease period has expired, but BBMP has nobody to follow them up and renew the lease or take possession of the property.
In another case, a big builder encroached on 3.2 acres of land near the BBMP West Zone office in Malleshwaram. Owing to a public interest litigation filed by N R Ramesh, former corporator of Yediyuru ward, the court ordered the BBMP in 2016 to take possession of the encroached land. The BBMP served notice to the builder. The builder went to court and brought a stay and the encroachment is yet to be cleared.
G R Mohan, an advocate who has fought many PILs against BBMP, says that when the court issues notice, there should be a proper response from the BBMP, by appointing advocates and giving them information. Most of the time, advocates do not get proper instructions. This results in adjournments of cases often.
“Take the example of the flex banner ban case. The court asked them what steps the BBMP has taken, but there was no response. The counsel who represented the BBMP could not file a response because the BBMP did not respond. Finally, the court gave time till March 6,” he says.
A weak link
Ask why this happens and the fingers are pointed towards BBMP’s legal cell. This cell coordinates between advocates and officials and follows up on court cases. Technically even lease documents should fall under their purview but the cell is unable to handle the existing caseload efficiently, forget the follow-up of lease cases.
The cell is terribly understaffed. The legal cell has an allotment of five Deputy Law Officers (DLOs) and eight Assistant Law Officers (ALOs). While there are five DLOs, there are only 3 ALOs out of five posts.
A crucial link in the legal cell is the Junior Law Officers (JLOs). Sixteen positions have been allotted, but all of them remain unfilled. The last recruitment happened in 2009, and those recruited then have become DLOs now.
Officials in this feeder-cadre post help the advocates with para-by-para remarks and coordinate between the associated departments and advocates to share information and notes.
Prashanth Chandra, a Bengaluru-based advocate, has been practising for 36 years. He works closely with BBMP on many cases. “There are a lot of cases and the legal cell has less staff. The BBMP has expanded, and litigations also have increased,” he says, explaining that the staff shortage affects lawyers as well because communication, instructions and information are not timely and coordinating with respective departments to give feedback to the lawyers becomes difficult for the existing staff.
‘Officials responsible’
Legal cell sources agree with the observation. But they also blame it on the concerned departments. “If the concerned department does not provide the information on time, it is not fair to blame it on us,” said one official. “The mother of the litigation is the concerned department,” he quipped, adding that there are more than 50 departments in the BBMP.
BBMP legal cell handles a panel of advocates. As of now, there are about 90 advocates in this panel, but none of them is permanent. When a case comes, it is delegated to a deputy law officer at BBMP, who also picks an advocate for the same case.
As of June 2022, approximately 7,588 cases involving BBMP were pending. There is no accurate data on pending cases as of today. BBMP’s Court Case Monitoring System was dysfunctional and law officers could not pull out records and data in real time.
A visit to the BBMP legal cell showed files with court records lying everywhere. The staff said there is not even a record room to maintain the files, while rodents roam freely in the office and the safety of files is in danger. However, key files are maintained by advocates themselves sometimes, said sources.
Officials say wherever BBMP properties are involved, the legal cell prioritises such cases. However, smaller cases such as building bylaw violations and tax evasion suffer because of the shortcomings in the legal system.
‘Form legal cells in all zones’
Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) set up by the Karnataka government took note of the problems in BBMP’s litigation landscape and suggested many reforms in its recent report. A report that forms the basis for the ARC report, prepared by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy looks at the data closely and has identified many loopholes.
A comparison between BBMP to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, in terms of population, cases and legal officers, revealed how short-staffed BBMP is. “While there are 31 sanctioned posts in the legal cell, 22 of them are vacant,” noted the ARC report.
Says T M Vijay Bhaskar who heads the Administrative Reforms Commission: “We have suggested that the BBMP set up legal cells in each zone in order to pursue the cases effectively and share information with the advocates. Even at the head office, there should be more legal officers who are directly recruited in addition to the empanelled advocates. Sometimes advocates may not be briefed properly, so we need a full-time strong legal cell in BBMP.”
“We have suggested the creation of new posts and recruitment of full-time legal officers at the zonal level who can go to courts to brief advocates and provide material for arguments,” he explains. Vijay Bhaskar has been the BBMP administrator as well in the past.
It may cost a few extra crores to the BBMP to create additional posts and recruitment, but the benefits in the form of revenues outweigh the cost. “There are cases against increasing property tax, advertisement fee, increasing the lease amounts of BBMP buildings etc. Most of the time the concerned party goes to court and may get a stay order. Once the stay order is in place, the case lingers without resolution if there is no follow-up by the BBMP. A well-staffed legal cell could pursue these cases and obtain orders from the court,” Vijay Bhaskar adds.
Violations of sanctioned plans are rampant in Bengaluru. “Here also, because of a lack of follow-up, before the BBMP is able to get a hearing, the party will complete the construction. Even for demolition, they try to drag on the case for years,” observes Vijay Bhaskar.
Reports say about 80% of buildings in the city have violations. “In most cases, officers don’t even issue notices because they think nothing will happen. If they know that the cases will be followed up and pursued they will issue notices,” he says.
“For increasing revenue and increasing compliance to various municipal matters we need a strong legal cell and structure with full-time legal officers in BBMP,” he adds.
Chandra says the BBMP has recruited a senior lawyer and retired district judges in eight zones two months ago to overcome the shortage. They are the interface between Palike and the lawyers who assist in finalising para-wise comments, documents and guidance on legal approaches. “The legal cell is short on expertise, time and staff. This new system is helping the advocates of the Palike,” he says.
“Since legal advisors are seniors, their expertise helps in dealing with cases, but they are on a contract basis,” says an official, adding that they do not have any contact with the legal cell in the BBMP head office, as they liaison with the officials and advocates at the zonal level.