but on comunidade land as well, seems to be tad over ambitious, taking into account the Bombay High Court’s stated position when it rejected a similar misadventure of the Maharashtra government. Therefore the decision of a social activist to move the High Court of Bombay at Goa seeking to quash or stay the ordinance on the Goa Regularization of Unauthorized Construction, issued by the State government last month, assumes immense significance.
The Court, in the Maharshtra government’s case, as highlighted by Herald in an editorial in May, has settled the judicial position very clearly. A division bench of justices Abhay Oka and Prakash Naik observed that the policy was arbitrary, not in conformity with Article 14 of the Constitution of India and other laws governing construction activity.
It is pertinent to note that the Court has opined specifically on whether the decision of the Maharashtra government to regularise illegal structures was in consonance with the development control regulations and rules, and the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act. On this the Bombay High Court stated, “The State cannot be allowed to protect illegal structures in keeping with the provisions of existing laws.”
This is going to be crux of the argument in Goa’s case too. The Goa Town and Country Planning Act and all other revenue regulations cannot be superseded by this ordinance or any future act. As the PIL in Goa rightly states, “The legalizing of illegal houses without following law of land in force is a crime by the makers of law by overwriting the law for persons who have broken the law and built illegal houses… Until the petition is heard and decided (by the court) this court should stay the ordinance like done by the High Court of Bombay at Mumbai.”
The challenge must lie in preventing this government from bringing in legislations which not only bypass existing land acts but at the same time, violate provisions in the Regional Plan 2021 which is still kept in abeyance.
The Maharashtra policy permitted construction on land reserved for schools, playgrounds, roads, open spaces and even government land. The Goa government must come clear and come clean on the specific zoning in the RP-2021 in areas where illegal structures will be legalised. The Maharashtra government proposed to regularise illegal constructions in industrial, commercial and no-development zones. This was done by changing them to residential residential zones and also doing what Goa has done, allowing illegal structures to be regularized in residential zones.
This will be followed by the next bill in line, legalising structures in comunidade land, which would mean that houses built illegally through illegal transaction, especially in the Shirvoi Comunidade. Comunidade officials here, who have, through forgery and illegal transactions, “sold” comunidade plots for close to a decade for people to build illegal houses, may well have the last laugh. The land was sold to migrants, without any sale deeds. 200 houses have been built on that land, which now have electricity and water connections.
And finally, if this ordinance or the following legislation to regularise structures on comunidade land, is allowed to go through, lakhs of ordinary Goans who have spent their life’s savings in building legal homes for their generations will feel totally betrayed and cheated. Should this grave injustice be their price for following the laws of this land?
