All 500 law candidates fail BMC’s entrance exam

The legal department of the BMC has been facing an acute staff crunch for the last few years and to fill the 16 vacant posts, entrance exams were held recently. Interestingly, all the 500 candidates who appeared for the entrance exams in September 2017 failed to get the required pass percentage.

The BMC is now in a quandary, as it has to deal with a huge backlog of legal cases filed against it in numerous courts.

Jernold Xavier, the law officer of the BMC, confirmed the status. "Around 500 candidates appeared for the exams but they all failed to get the minimum 50 per cent marks.

Then, the criteria was relaxed and scaled down to 45 per cent; still no one could pass the exam," said Xavier.

The vacant posts are for Assistant Law Officer, grade A and B. The candidates have to clear three papers of 100 marks each, including one paper of General Knowledge, a second paper of and a third paper of Reasoning, which contains questions on the Municipal Act, the Right To Information Act, the Maharashtra Region and Town Planning Act, knowledge of court working, etc. Currently, in grade A, the BMC law department needs to fill 28 posts and 16 posts in Grade B.

BMC has a staggering backlog of 90,000 cases in various courts. Owing to shortage of staff, the department has to keep pace with cases dating back several years and also stay abreast of the new cases that are filed in various courts on a daily basis.