Tired of seeing public areas being used as open dumping grounds, five law students have drafted an innovative plaint against Bangalore city’s municipal corporation, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). The plaint, filed before the City Civil Court, states that by failing to clear the garbage dumped in the Kamakshipalya locailty, the BBMP has committed the offence of “public nuisance”.

The five students are Abin Francis, Nikhil Sawlani, Devaang Agarwalla, Joachim Saldanha and Pavan Shyam. While Pawan Shyam is currently studying at Amity Law School, the rest are all students of the National University of Juridical Sciences. The opportunity to file the plaint came during their internship with Advocate KV Dhananjay, a Bangalore-based lawyer.

“The residents in the area had had enough of the dumping”, recounts Pawan. Representations made before the BBMP had failed to produce any results. “The plaintiffs approached Mr. Dhananjay”, says Joachim, “who then assigned us the task of drafting the petition.”

Speaking to Bar & Bench, Nikhil Sawlani said that the decision to file a civil suit rather than a writ petition was a conscious one. Lacking an original side jurisdiction (in civil matters), the Karnataka High Court would not have been able to examine evidence in writ proceedings. This “inability to examine evidence” explains Sawlani, “makes it hard to make a case when the other side denies everything.”

The plaint, which was filed last week, already appears to have produced the desired result. “Most of the garbage,” says Devaang, “has already been cleared….that is all the reward we need.” When asked about why they chose the civil court route, Sawlani is quick to reply, “Being law students, we felt that if not us, then who? The provision is is there to be found in the CPC. It just had to be used.”