Mumbai University spent over 4 Lakh on lawyers – RTI reply
14 Feb, 2013The reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that the University of Mumbai (MU) spent more than Rs. 4 lakh for hiring senior advocates to defend the appointment of the university vice chancellor (VC) though it has an in-house panel of lawyers.
The PIO of the finance and accounts department of the university stated in the reply that the university had paid bills worth Rs. 4,10,900 to three lawyers - Rafique A Dada (Rs 3,30,900), Naushad R Engineer (Rs 45,000) and Sagar G Talekar (Rs 35,000).
While submitting the bills to the accounts' department on August 2, 2011, MU legal adviser had clearly said that these lawyers were not on the MU panel and that they were specifically appointed to look after writ petitions no. 1901 of 2010, PIL no. 96 of 2010 and PIL no. 92 of 2010. The applicant has written to the university chancellor stating that he wanted his office to recover the spent amount from VC’s salary.