Bombay high court directs BMC to regularise appointments of 3 legal officers

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to regularise appointments of three officers in its legal department. Justices S M Modak and Sandeep Marne, pronouncing the judgment, said the BMC, the largest civic body with a massive budget — exceeding those of small states — does require law officers with experience. Pallavi Khale, Neeta Jadhav, and Pooja Yadav, working as assistant law officers (grade II) with the BMC for five years, petitioned the HC seeking regularisation of their appointment. Their counsel, Joel Carlos, contending permanency of their posts, asked that merely because a service issue was pending before the Supreme Court for seven years, could their employment still be considered provisional. The HC held that Carlos made out a case for regularisation of their appointment and also directed BMC to consider them for promotion too. Opposing the plea, senior counsel Narendra Bandiwadekar, for the BMC, stressed that "the appointments are temporary and subject to outcome of the [SC] in a Special Leave Petition". The HC, analysing the law on service rules, said the BMC had followed the recruitment process and the trio completed their three-year probationary period.The fact that these three also have the experience of appearing before the court for the BMC till it was stopped pending the plea before the SC, would "certainly help the corporation'' in engaging them for other legal work as well, the HC said.