DNA ( 22 Sept ) carries
following news report :
“ BMC
won’t pay its lawyers for adjournments “
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.
I would say , a good beginning which can , over time ,
migrate to my following suggestion ( sent as email to BMC Commissioner ) :
Saturday, 19 August 2017
An App called “ AdJourn “
DNA ( 30 July ) carried a report with
following headline :
“ BMC tracks counsels, to fire those
below par “
The civic body is using a software to
keep track of its 60,000 court cases
According to an official, the
counsels’ performance will be monitored through the number of adjourn to date
“ We have found that counsels kept
running the case for years by getting new dates and continued to charge for
each appearance in court “ , said the official
The law department of the BMC, however, informed him that it does not have
record about the success rate of the cases. “Till now no such independent
record is available with the department,” the law department stated in the
reply.
=============================================================================
Now , there are 2 types of cases ,
viz:
TYPE A
· Cases filed by others on BMC
- Where BMC will save lawyer’s fees if “ No of hearing dates “ are reduced
. Call this a SAVING
TYPE B
· Cases filed by BMC on others
- Where winning that case would result in some “ Earnings “ for BMC . Call
this aEARNING
Hence , the lawyer’s fees should be
decided based on SAVINGS ( in
case of TYPE A ) ,
Or EARNINGS (
in case of TYPE B ) – which accrue in the shortest possible time
Based on statistics for the past 10
years , BMC should compute , a FREQUENCY
DISTRIBUTION CURVE ( a BELL shaped curve ) , for
the “ No of Hearing Dates “ and calculate the STANDARD
DEVIATION ( Sigma ) and calculate ( + / - ) 3
SIGMA limits
That would tell the BMC , “ Most likely Number of Hearing Dates “ for any
given case
Let us say , this figure comes out 20
And BMC already knows in advance , “
Lawyer’s fees per appearance “ ( say, Rs 5000 )
So , estimating exactly ( with a
probability of 99 % ) , HOW MUCH this case will cost , is a no brainer ! It
would be Rs 100,000 ( for 20 hearings )
Now tell the Counsel
:
Sir , this is the Upper Limit of the amount that we will pay you (
Rs 100,000 ) for fighting this case
But , from 10th “
date “ onwards , we will start deducting , Rs 5,000
per each additional hearing , beyond 10th ( - a PENALTY ),
And ,
For each date less than 10 , we will pay you a BONUS of Rs 5,000 !
And , we will DOUBLE the BONUS amount so arrived , if you WIN the case !
Next witness a miracle !
All cases will start getting
completed in 5 hearings !
May be in months , instead of in years !
I have a feeling that , overall , BMC
will save crores of rupees ( despite paying BONUSES to lawyers ) , since it would save a huge amount of TIME that its officers are
currently spending in courts ( - and earning TA / DA ! )
After reading this , do not be
surprised if some Start Up ( could be : MeetUrPro / LawRato/ Vakilsearch /
IndiaFilings / Vahura
) , comes up with a Mobile App called , “ AdJourn “ , to enable BMC lawyers to
enter the adjourned date in the App which instantly and automatically , updates
the CASE STATUS on
the BMC web site and
simultaneously , on the web site of the concerned court !
Call this , “ Transparency at its Best “ ( - also to
judge the performance of the JUDGE ! )
With more than 30 million cases
pending in Courts all over India ,” AdJourn “ could change the very landscape of India’s Legal Management
System , if adopted by all the Courts !
This could be one more “ App for Everything “ – which Shri Modi would love
to launch !
======================
22 Sept 2017
