PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Tuesday dismissed the public interest litigation (PIL) against the proposed concretization of the Miramar-Dona Paula road. The petition had alleged that public funds were misspent.
When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, the petitioner, lawyer-activist Aires Rodrigues argued that the State did not take into confidence the Corporation of City of Panjim (CCP) before beginning the work and neither was the approval from the Finance Committee obtained.
“When a project is worth over Rs 5 crore, approval has to be taken from the Finance Committee of the government but in the present case, it wasn’t. Moreover, no objection certificate (NOC) related to coastal regulation zone was not taken,” he argued.
Advocate General Atmaram Nadkarni contested the argument claiming that it is a matter of policy about how roads would be constructed. He cited various Supreme Court judgments defending his argument while also highlighting that the project’s budgetary provision was made out. “The project is a part of Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation’s (GSIDC) master plan,” he added.
Rodrigues further alleged that the road stretch, which is a proposed four-lane, is now sought to be three-lane. “How can this be possible,” he asked.
In his PIL, Rodrigues had mentioned there was no reason to dig up a freshly laid and hot mixed road as this has squandered a sum of Rs 1.3 crore in the process and to spend a further sum of Rs 72 crore in concretizing the road was a gross misuse of power and daylight robbery of public funds. He had pleaded that the concretization of the road be stopped and the loss to the State exchequer by this illegal work be recovered from the guilty officers concerned.
