The civic administration has a total of 1,291 cases in court now, locking in an amount of Rs 704 crore. Each of these cases is disputed owing to various reasons, including high amount of tax, wrong assessment of property, with an amount involving more than Rs 1 lakh. BMC has also appointed a panel of two retired judges for out-of-court settlement of cases of tax assesment department.

The assistant legal officers working with the civic legal department, specially for the purpose of fighting the cases related to recovery of property tax, will be given motivational allowance if they encourage and convince the property owner to pay 100 per cent or 80 per cent of the tax.

“Even if the property tax cases are disputed, the court directs the owners to pay some part of the tax amount to BMC. Many a time these cases go on for years resulting in waste of time, energy and money for both the civic body as well as owners. We therefore want to encourage the owners to either pay the full amount of the tax or 80 per cent so that the case will be then withdrawn,” a senior official from the property tax department said. “Those assistant legal officers who are able to convince the owners to pay up the amount will be given motivational allowance.”

The assistant legal officers thus stand to gain anywhere between Rs 7,500 and Rs 1.07 lakh if they are able to encourage the property owner with disputed cases to pay the tax to BMC.