TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa today passed an interim order restraining the State government from re-tendering allotments of all plots in the Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat at Dona Paula.
The Division Bench of Justices V M Kanade and U V Bakre while passing the interim relief also asked the State to file a reply within one week.
Last November, Infotech Corporation of Goa Limited Chairman Subhash Phaldesai had said that the corporation would make fresh allotment of plots at the IT Habitat specifically to IT industries as per the IT policy of the government.
He was, however, not available for comments when Herald tried contacting him, after the court order.
Infotech Corporation had cancelled the plot allotments done earlier and taken back the plots, as it was not genuine. A time frame of a year was decided for fresh allotments.
Earlier to that, a Margao-based non governmental organization Nitoll Jinn Trust (NJT) had moved the High Court complaining of gross irregularities in allotment of plots and prayed that the court should set aside the allotment. The State government in August 2012 then decided to cancel the allotment of all plots and re-allot citing several financial defaults and violations of the terms and conditions of the lease deed.
Though the then Congress-led government launched the IT habitat with much fanfare, it had to finally put the project in cold storage. The entire project came to a grinding halt and further, no allottee undertook any activity at the site for the IT project.
According to the government official several encroachments came up on the site, and if the land is left in the present state, then there will be more encroachments.
Advocate Agnelo Diniz, appeared on behalf of petitioner Prashant Deshmukh. Additional government advocate appearing for the respondents, Pankaj Vernekar refused to comment.
