Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday asked the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) to submit a plan to relocate the meat vendors, who have been evacuated from the old and dilapidated Panjim Municipal Fish Market building.
The Court has also sought timeline from CCP by Tuesday, by which the Goa Engineering College (GEC), Farmagudi would submit its structural stability report of the building.
During the hearing of a writ petition filed by Mushtak Hussain Khatib and six others, the CCP submitted a copy of a letter submitted to the GEC asking them to conduct structural stability report of the municipal fish market building, and stated that it would require 15 days to submit the report. However, the Court opined that the report be submitted within a week.
Referring to the orders dated August 13, 2024, that the municipal fish market building was in dangerous state and there was imminent danger not only to the occupants but also the fish vendors housed in a shed adjacent to the building, the court pointed out that it could cause loss of life and property and that the fish vendors also need be moved away from the current location. But the CCP counsel said that there would be chaos to relocate all the fish vendors.
Further if the building is identified to be in dangerous state, the court sought to know whether there was any demolition plan in place and also asked the CCP who would be responsible in case there was loss of life and property as a building once identified as dangerous cannot be allowed to stand any longer. The court also discussed alternate plans for rehabilitation of those affected since the CCP Commissioner Clen Madeira in his affidavit has expressed inability to rehabilitate the evicted shop/stall vendors due to space constraint.
Pointing to petitioner’s lawyer Adv De Sa’s statement that the eviction of vendors had caused shortage of meat in the Panjim market, the High Court asked the CCP to submit details of number of meat shops that had been sealed in the municipal fish market, by Tuesday.
The petitioners had claimed that the report of the consultant engineer of Goa Polytechnic College, Panjim, does not indicate that there was imminent danger and threat to public safety and in fact the said report stated that the ground floor and the first floor could be utilised with upon repairs. They further claimed that the CCP Mayor and the Commissioner had assured them that they would be provided alternate premises to carry on their trade/occupation during the interim period i.e. till the time the building was demolished and the new building constructed in its place.