MAPUSA: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has passed an order under the Electricity Act 2003 and upheld the order of the District Margistrate Panjim permitting the Electricity Department to lay the lines in the fields at Parra on Friday and the judges were SC Gupte and Prithviraj K. Chavan.

The Writ Petition concerns were the laying of high tension electric lines in the fields of the petitioners. Their grievance was that electric lines are being laid by raising poles in their fields contrary to the provisions of law. It is submitted that there was no consent taken from the petitioners whilst laying or placing electric supply lines on or over their lands nor did they take an order from the District Magistrate prior to putting up the line.

It is not in dispute that the Electricity Department in the present case had obtained permission in writing from the District Magistrate for carrying out the work under the provision to Rule 3 of Works of Licensees Rules, 2006 under clause (e) of sub-section (2) of Section 176 read with sub-section (2) of Section 67 of the Electricity Act, 2003 only after the petitioners approached the High Court did they make a representation to the District Magistrate. It is also their grievance that the copy of the application made by the Electricity Department was not furnished to the petitioners.

The claims made was that is it a 6 km line out of which there was objection from farmers to only 1.5 km of this line and they had already completed 4 kms of the work. Without consent and order the entire line was pulled without following legal procedures.

The advocate for the petitioner, Caroline Collasso, told Herald the Electricity Department is not even considerate in the matter and the option of going through the cultivable fields of farmers which was adopted was not even a viable one. “Argument is that they are not taking over the land but only using it. Underground cabling may be expensive but why waste money setting up an overhead line as a temporary arrangement for few months. This is completely bad planning by the Electricity Department. In congested areas under ground cabling is the best option. They need to have designated corridors where all the lines can go and easy to rectify problems in the long run. Currently the work is being done in a haphazard manner and does not augur well,” she said.

The Village Panchayats of Calangute and Candolim prayed to be joined as party respondents to the petition on Friday.

The Sarpanch of Calangute, Shawn Martins told Herald that he was present at the court on Friday along with the panchayat secretary.