PANJIM: The Goa High Court on Tuesday allowed the State government to implead 53 additional authorities and individuals, including the Luthra brothers, as respondents in the suo motu PIL concerning the Arpora nightclub fire that claimed 25 lives. Notices were issued to all parties, re-turnable on February 3.
Among those added are the State government, Goa Coastal Zone Man-agement Authority (GCZMA), Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSP-CB), Director of Panchayats, Director of Municipal Administration, Director of Fire and Emergency Services, both District Magistrates, both District Su-perintendents of Police and Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department.
Also included are, Commissioner of Excise, Deputy Col-lector and Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of Bardez-Ma-pusa, North, South and Mormugao Planning and Develop-ment Authorities, five municipal councils, and 26 village panchayats from coastal areas.
Individuals named include Gaurav Luthra, Saurabh Luthra, Surinder Kumar Khosla, and former Arpora-Nagoa sarpanch Roshan Redkar
The High Court also separated a writ petition filed by Pradeep Ghadi Amonkar and another from the suo motu PIL, while keeping activist Aishwarya Salgaonkar’s PIL tagged with the main case. The Court noted that it aimed to keep the suo motu PIL “pure and clean.”
Advocate General Devidas Pangam highlighted the Court’s directive for the impleadment of nightclub owners, the former sarpanch, all coastal village panchayats, TCP Department, Fire and Emergency Services, PDAs of North, South, and Mormugao, GCZMA, and municipal councils. “These bodies are connected with such commercial activi-ties and are expected to initiate action against illegal oper-ations in coastal areas,” he said. “The Court will supervise the actions taken by authorities against clubs operating in a high-handed manner.”
The High Court also intends to examine whether compen-sation can be awarded to victims by those responsible for the deaths in the tragedy, the AG added. He emphasized that trade licences are issued by village panchayats, and if structures within their jurisdiction are used commercially without per-mission, it is their duty to intervene and stop such activities.
Amicus curiae Adv Rohit Bras de Sa stated that the High Court had made it clear that effective directions would be issued to prevent such incidents from recurring. He also noted that the writ petition filed by Pradeep Ghadi Amonkar and Sunil D Divker was separated due to a dis-pute between the original owners and those in possession of the property at Sankhwadi, Arpora.
In a related development, the Mapusa Additional Ses-sions Court on Tuesday dismissed an intervention application filed by the Joshi family in connection with the antic-ipatory bail plea of the Luthra brothers in the alleged fake health NOC matter. The victims’ family had sought to in-tervene in proceedings against the Luthras’ firm, Being GS Hospitality Goa Arpora LLP, accused of forging documents to obtain an excise licence and cheating authorities.
The matter has been adjourned to January 20. Four mem-bers of the Joshi family from Delhi had died in the fire, along with 21 others. Victims’ family counsel Adv Vishnu Joshi said they will appeal the order: Separately, the Mapusa Court postponed the hearing on Gaurav and Saurabh Luthra’s bail applications in the culpable homicide case to January 17.
