HC orders Corlim p’yat to demolish Illegal structure linked to temple

PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Tuesday ordered the Corlim village panchayat to demolish alleged illegal construction linked to the Sateri Ravanath temple at Dhulapi-Corlim within next three months. 

The Court rejected the plea of the respondent seeking to stay the order on the demolition for four weeks.

Nilu Dhulapkar, who is also a mahajan of Sateri Ravalnath Devasthan, Dhulapi had filed a writ petition seeking directions to the respondents to enforce the village panchayat to stop from carrying out illegal construction in survey number 32/1 and survey number 32/3 by the Devasthanwithout obtaining prior permissionfrom the statutory authorities as required under the law. 

The Court had earlier asked the Deputy Director of Panchayats, Panjim; Tiswadi Mamlatdar, Village Panchayat, Panchayat Secretary and the Tiswadi Block Development Officer (BDO) to ensure that the construction was actually stopped and the order was complied with.

The devasthan committee had decided to demolish the old structure of the temple and reconstruct the new temple vide resolution dated July 3, 2022. But the new managing committee of the Devasthan without any permissions from the competent authorities, demolished the old structure of the temple and started a new RCC pillar structure in the same place but with a significantly greater area than before. 

Following this, Dhulapkar filed a complaint with the village panchayat, who issued stop work order vide letter dated October 14, 2022. The panchayat asked the managing committee to immediately stop illegalconstruction and to produce valid construction licence/permissions if any. In spite of the stop work notice, the work continued.

The petitioner submitted that the area of the old temple was around 56.10 square metres whereas the new structure was more than double the area of the old structure. As the construction of the structure was completed the Court had earlier ordered to seal it and to ensure that is not used for any purpose.

Also 256 villagers including mahajans filed an intervention application supporting the causeof the petitioner. 

TheDivision bench comprising Justices Mahesh Sonak and B P Deshpande pointed out that the attempt on behalf of the temple managing committee to regularise such illegal structure was turned down by the authorities.  

The Court stated that illegal structure built in defiance of the stop work order be demolished and the cost be recovered from the temple managing committee. The village panchayat and the Tiswadi BDO have been asked to submit compliance report on completion of three months.