Team Herald
MARGAO: In a significant judgment that may have repercussions on the State’s coastline, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has upheld the view of the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) that once a pre-1991 structure is demolished and replaced with another structure without prior permission, it would lose the protection of the CRZ law.
While dismissing an appeal by Agnelo Fernandes against a GCZMA demolition order of Zinho’s Beach Resort at Baga – Calangute, the NGT’s Principal Bench held, “Even if there was some structure, the structure in existence is not the same, as rightly found in the impugned order. The assumption that some structures existed prior to 1991 is only for sake of argument to test the alternative point of the said structure being demolished and replaced by current G+2 structures subsequent to 1991. The present structure is thus a new construction which is against the CRZ Notification.”
Earlier, the GCZMA had ruled that since there was the redevelopment of the structure post 19.02.1991, the structure was illegal. It opined that CRZ Notification 1991 adopts what is called a ‘doctrine of toleration’; pre-1991 development that existed in accordance with laws and norms that then existed had to be tolerated.
Simultaneously, the legislative policy was also reflected in the ‘doctrine of containment’ in as much as though what existed prior to 1991 had to be tolerated, it should not be permitted to grow beyond the dimensions unto which it was tolerated.
“The CRZ Notification protects or tolerates the development or structure, not the land on which it was once standing on,” the GCZMA held.
