1. Case Outcome

The average disposal time across the 332 cases was 684.13 days, and the median was 191.5 days, indicating that most cases resolve relatively quickly, while outliers extend the average. 

– The median disposal time of 135 cases that became infructuous or were withdrawn was 259 days, and the mean was 750 days. These were the cases where the relief sought did not survive due to subsequent developments, or the petitioners withdrew or did not pursue the case. 

– 62 cases that were relegated back   to the BBMP officials with or without procedural directions, had an average disposal time of 667 days and a median disposal time of 130 days

– 46 cases where the court explicitly directed petitioners to exhaust available appeal or statutory mechanisms before availing writ remedy took 347 days on average and 72 days was the median disposal time. 

Figure 1: Outcome of writ petition cases (against BBMP) disposed in 2024

https://www.datawrapper.de/_/TxUb9/ 
Within this landscape, the High Court often insists that petitioners exhaust statutory remedies before approaching it, yet does so inconsistently. Many petitions arise in contexts where alternate remedies  clearly exist. The Supreme Court’s decision in Whirlpool Corporation v. Registrar of Trademarks, Mumbai sets out four well-known contingencies where writ intervention is appropriate despite alternate remedies: 

● enforcement of fundamental rights, 

● failure of natural justice, 

● cases of patent lack of jurisdiction or vires challenges, and 

● when the remedy available is not equally efficacious. 

In our analysis, however, the reasoning applied to dismiss a petition on grounds of existing alternate remedy, or to nonetheless intervene on merits, does not track these contingencies in a systematic way. In some matters with clear disputed questions of fact, the High Court has ordered spot inspections, examined the record in depth, or analysed revenue entries in detail, while ostensibly similar disputes are relegated back without such engagement. 

2. Dispute wise 

Figure 2: Disposal Time (in days) for type of dipute

https://www.datawrapper.de/_/IiBfP/?v=3 

Across 332 writ petitions, median disposal times range from about a month (for challenges to Provisional/Confirmation Orders under Section 248) to roughly three years (for tenders, demolition, and service matters). The set of judgments studied encompasses writ petitions of a diverse nature. Tax disputes (74 cases) and the “Others” bucket (60 cases) have the highest volumes in this sample.

Figure 3: Case outcomes for each category

https://www.datawrapper.de/_/b7qZp/?v=4 
The property tax and construction clusters illustrate how writs function both as pressure tools and as corrective mechanisms. In property tax matters, median disposal stands at 170 days. Roughly half the petitions became infructuous because petitioners opted for BBMP’s One Time Settlement (OTS) scheme mid‑litigation, and a few more were withdrawn after negotiated resolutions. Yet in 23 cases, the High Court meaningfully intervened by quashing 13 notices or relegating 10 back for fresh consideration where officials had failed to follow prescribed processes. 

Complaints against a private respondent regarding unauthorised construction, and challenges to Section 248 Provisional/Confirmation Orders (PO/CO) by the Commissioner, show a similar pattern. While the law expects BBMP to issue a provisional “show‑cause” order followed by a confirmation order, a significant number of writs ended without a final ruling on the core legality of the construction. The court’s most common approach is to ask BBMP to “consider the representation” or complete the PO/CO sequence within a set timeline. Yet in a subset of unauthorised construction disputes, especially where neighbours make competing factual claims, the court has gone further, ordering spot inspections and examining the factual matrix itself, even though such exercises sit uneasily with the usual reluctance to resolve disputed questions of fact in writ proceedings.

Cases which challenge the orders passed by the commissioner starkly show how process sometimes matters more than substance. These petitions get resolved the fastest, with a median of 35 days, because the court generally does not get into the weeds of the dispute. The court usually confines itself to ensuring that notices are properly issued and replies are considered, rather than deciding whether the construction is actually legal. Out of 36  such disputes, 5 are sent back for procedural compliance, while 8 end up as infructuous or withdrawn.

Citizens approaching courts even when alternative remedies are available reflects a lack of faith in these executive remedies. A structural reason why statutory remedies are underutilised is that the appellate authority under Section 253 does not sit regularly. Faced with this practical bottleneck, citizens are nudged towards writ petitions as a faster, more certain way to at least get a hearing, even if that hearing ultimately results in a remand to the very appellate route they bypassed. 

Other clusters display their own distinctive dynamics. Revenue‑entry writs (32 cases; median 131 days) sit at the intersection of fiscal administration and property rights. Section 150 permits review of mutations within three years, and most petitions fall inside this period. Here, courts have intervened in the bulk of cases, granting relief or remanding in 22 out of 32, while keeping attrition (withdrawn/infructuous) relatively low. Land‑use, licensing, and health disputes (37 cases; median 264 days) show the highest degree of substantive engagement: nearly half end with some relief, and the court examines legal and factual issues in over 40 percent of cases, often in complex matters involving trade licences, zoning compliance, or claims to Transferable Development Rights. At the opposite end, tender disputes (9 cases; median 1100 days) and service matters (26 cases; median 1100 days) linger the longest and most often dissolve without substantive outcomes. In tender cases, seven of nine petitions were withdrawn or rendered infructuous. Service disputes, especially transfers, are highly time‑sensitive, yet many petitions are abandoned after long delays; the court grants only limited, tenure‑tied interim relief in 2 cases. Our sample has only six demolition cases with a median disposal time of 1100 days. In these few cases, the court consistently addressed the substantive prayer.

Conclusion

Taken together, the data show a writ system that operates less as a consistent doctrinal filter and more as a flexible, sometimes ad hoc, safety valve. Petitioners frequently invoke writ jurisdiction even when alternate remedies exist, often as a strategic move to push BBMP to act, to buy time, or to leverage schemes like OTS, rather than to seek a final judgment. The court, for its part, oscillates between (a) enforcing the discipline of statutory remedies by dismissing or remanding cases, and (b) wading into facts and merits in select clusters such as revenue entries, land‑use disputes, and demolition. The result is a mixed picture: writ proceedings do correct serious procedural failures and provide meaningful relief in a non‑trivial minority of cases, but they also absorb a large volume of cases that the existing appellate and administrative mechanisms, if made more accessible, time‑bound, and predictable, ought to handle.

It is settled that the existence of an alternate remedy, by itself, is not enough to bar writ jurisdiction; that remedy must also be efficacious. A meaningful reform agenda should focus on making those remedies work on the ground. The new Greater Bengaluru Authority should recognise this gap and incorporate systems through which administrative lapses are avoided and corrected before they ripen into writ disputes. If these systems become credible and responsive, citizens will be more willing to trust administrative and quasi‑judicial routes, and the High Court can return to its intended role: correcting exceptional illegality and rights violations, rather than serving as the first port of call for routine municipal disputes.

Reference

1.  The authors are grateful for the research assistance provided by Akshat Gaur, Nishant Kumar and Vedant Gupta (all students of NLSIU) for this blog.
2. We classified cases based on statutory and administrative contours affecting BBMP disputes. Categories align with key BBMP Act provisions as Section 144 for tax reassessment, Section 248 and Section 253 for enforcement against unauthorised construction, and Section 150 for revenue entries. Low-incidence and difficult-to-classify matters were consolidated into an “Others”
3. Some alternative remedies are tax appeals to the Karnatak a Appellate Tribunal, revenue entry review before the Joint Commissioner under Section 150systematically track these contingencies of the BBMP Act, service appeals under Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal, or departmental appeals under Section 253 of BBMP Act against notices issued by commissioners