PANJIM: The Goa Lokayukta office has ordered criminal proceedings against former sarpanch and ex-secretary of Reis Magos panchayat for misuse of power in a bid to authenticate existence of five ‘houses’ as 100-year-old structures so as to grant protection to the property from the purview of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ).
The criminal proceedings have been sought against former sarpanch Prasanna Nagvekar and ex-panchayat secretary Subodh Prabhu along with the landowner Dr Benoy Berry.
In his order, the outgoing Lokayukta Justice (retd) P K Misra also ordered the incumbent sarpanch Virendra Shirodkar to vacate the office for his failure to inquire and take action against the alleged illegality.
He has also ordered suspension and sought disciplinary proceedings against then deputy director of panchayat Pundalik Khorjuvenkar, who is now posted as the administrator of south zone comunidade, for showing dereliction in duties and passing an order in favour of the illegal structures.
The Lokayukta had observed that owner - Berry, has made an obvious attempt to defraud everybody, in connivance with the panchayat representatives, so that house construction could be completed without any hurdles of CRZ authorities and hence the structure was shown as 100-year-old.
As per the case, one Suraj Shah, who represented Berry, had filed an application before the Reis Magos panchayat in April 2017 for house tax registration claiming that five ‘houses’ with height of 0.50mts existed for more than 100 years in survey number 96/6.
However, the copy of the sale deed showed no existence of any house on the property which claimed to have existed for the past 100 years.
According to the Lokayukta, the former sarpanch, the former panchayat secretary and the then panch members blindly – without making any attempt to verify the structures – passed the resolution on the same day of receiving the application. They granted house numbers in May 2017 to all the structures for illegal benefits by defrauding the provisions relating to the CRZ.
“Only God and God‘s representative being elected as ward members and sarpanch of the concerned panchayat can explain as to how a structure the height of which was only 0.50mts could be constructed as a house, existing in the language of Dr Benoy Berry for more than 100 years,” Justice Misra stated in the order.