Sources say it will help the civic body have out-of-court settlements for legal disputes as well
Ashutosh Salil
In a bid to have out-of-court settlements for legal disputes and to speed up the process of dealing with pending cases, the BMC plans to have a litigation policy. IAS officer, Ashutosh Salil, who recently took over as joint commissioner of BMC, will look into the matter. Commissioner Pravin Pardeshi has given him a go-ahead to appoint a consultant to draft the policy.
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Salil has roped in a Bangalore-based civil society organisation, which would identify the amount of work to be done and how to go about it. He has also signed an MoU with the state government in this regard. The policy would be mainly a standard operating procedure regarding the cases that could be avoided, the cases that need out-of-court settlements, those that don't need attention and the ones that need special attention. Currently, BMC spends crores of rupees for appointing senior counsels and also has 70,000 pending cases.
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A civic official said, "If the SC dismisses or rules against us and if we have the least chances of winning a case, then instead of going ahead with it, we will be able to look at other ways of resolving the matter like out-of-court settlements." He added, "The consultant will help the BMC identify such cases. The organisation will also approach the lawyers who are fighting cases against BMC to understand the problems and come up with solutions." When contacted, Salil confirmed that the policy would be framed, and said, "The commissioner has given a go-ahead but it is still at a primary stage."
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