PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Tuesday ordered sealing of as many as 175 commercial establishments situated on the beach stretch under Anjuna-Caisua village panchayat and to file compliance report within next 10 days.
While hearing a public interest litigation sauo motu in the matter of illegal construction, the Court asked the Anjuna-Caisua village panchayat and the Bardez Block Development Officer (BDO) to seal these establishments and submit action taken report within next 10 days.
The Court has asked the Panchayat and the Block Development Officer (BDO) to seal the establishments and submit action taken report within next 10 days.
The Court had admitted a suo motu petition on the illegal constructions on beach areas and within NDZ.
During the hearing, the Court found that these 175 commercial establishments were operating without obtaining construction licences, trade licences and occupation certificates. Earlier, of the total 275 structures situated in the Anjuna and Vagator belt operating from allegedly illegal premises within No Development Zone (NDZ), the panchayat had issued demolition orders to 100 structures and further issued show cause notices to remaining 175 structures.
In April 26, 2023, the High Court had stated that merely on the basis of house tax, electricity and water connections, one cannot claim that the structures are legal. They need to have construction licence under section 66 of the TCP Act but they did not have it and the village panchayat issuing show cause notices to them and later discharging them was not proper. This was the reason that all the resolutions were quashed by the High Court and asked the village panchayat to again issue show cause
notices to these structures within a period of two months. But the village panchayat did not initiate any decision in this regard and commercial operations continued as usual.
The division bench comprising Justice Mahesh Sonak and Justice Valmiki S A Menezes on Tuesday said that these structures do not have requisite construction licences, trade licences and occupation certificates. How can you allow them to carry out commercial activities?, the Court asked and directed the village panchayat and the Bardez BDO to immediately stop all the commercial operations and seal the structures within next 10 days and to submit compliance report.
