RTI reveals Mumbai University party in over 800 court cases

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Since 2010 over 800 court cases have been going on in courts, wherein the University of Mumbai (MU) is a party. The varsity has already spent crores to fight them, revealed a reply to the Right to Information (RTI) application filed by Pune-based Vihar Durve.
The information was provided in October on the orders passed by MU’s first appellate authority – the public information officer of legal cell. It was revealed that there are 894 cases in court, where MU is a party, and as much as Rs1.98 crore has been spent on legal expenses for advocates, counsels, consultants and so on from 2010-15.
The reply to the RTI application also revealed that maximum MU-related cases of Mumbai University are in Bombay High Court, then in tribunal court, Supreme Court, industrial, loknyalaya court, and the least in the consumer court.
Durve said, “MU comes under the public domain and there should be some transparency. The varsity should appoint advocates in a transparent and accountable manner. ”
MU registrar Dr MA Khan said, “Many city colleges are affiliated to MU and a number of teachers work in these colleges. If a teacher has any issue with the college management, then they make MU a party to the case as well. In some cases, we need experts to defend our case. The MU vice-chancellor has the power to spend on legal expenses and so accordingly the advocates are appointed for court matters. If the case is strong, we need competent advocates to fight and so the fees is also higher.”