PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Thursday dismissed Ashok Harmalkar’s writ petition praying for regularisation of his illegal structure at Arambol.
The Court stated that brazen illegal constructions with scant respect to law cannot be condoned and has to be demolished.
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Harmalkar had approached the High Court seeking directions to the Arambol village panchayat not to demolish his illegal construction in survey number 80/20/B since his application for its regularisation was pending before the CRZ Infrastructure and Building Construction of Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change and the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) made in February 3, 2015 and September 7, 2021 respectively.
The petitioner had also prayed to restrain the Bardez Block Development Officer (BDO) and the panchayat from demolishing his structure pending disposal of his applications for regularisation of the illegal structure by the two respondents.
Following a complaint by Baburao Harmalkar, the deputy director of panchayats by an order dated December 26, 2012, had directed the Arambol panchayat to demolish the illegal structure. But the petitioner filed an appeal before the director of panchayats, who referred it to the additional director of panchayats-II. The latter allowed his appeal and directed the petitioner to approach the panchayat with a plea for regularisation of the structure in accordance with the law.
However, the complainant challenged against the order before the District Court, who allowed hia civil revision application and set aside the additional director’s order dated November 18,2014 and restored the earlier order for demolition of the illegal structure.
Aggrieved by it the petitioner filed a writ petition before the High Court on ground that his applications for regularisation of the construction were pending before the GCZMA and that the panchayat cannot proceed to execute the deputy director of panchayat’s order for demolition.
