4,000 and counting, legal issues pile up

THANE: The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) seems to be having difficulty in handling legal issues related to illegal and old structures in the city.
The corporation's legal cell is faced with the daunting task of clearing a backlog of 4,000 cases, mostly involving petty civic matters including encroachment, illegal construction and evacuation of tenants from dilapidated structures.The numbers are just piling up with the cell dealing with roughly 150 litigations filed in courts every year.
This year almost all litigations have been petitions seeking stay orders on civic evacuation drives in old buildings that are facing a threat of collapse.
"All cases this year have been related to our action against evacuations of the dilapidated structure. There is little the corporation can do in this scenario," said a senior TMC official.
The department has been in news for the wrong reasons over the years but despite demands for an overhaul, very little has been done. The corporation has lately found itself facing the ire of courts for various reasons - illegal work during VIP functions, not handing over Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) to developers in cases where road area has been handed over, mistreatment of patients in civic hospital. In one case, the TMC was asked to cough up over Rs 2 lakh to a patient for an alleged botched-up operation.
Senior civic officials said the adverse judgments just show that corporation needs to represent its cases better in the court, and ensure that the court's orders are implemented earnestly to avoid any strictures being passed.
"In one recent case, the petitioner who is constructing a slum project has sought a stay on civic action when our officers have not even served any notice under law. These kind of cases need to be handled daftly," said a senior civic official.