Team Herald
MARGAO: The President of India has directed the Goa Chief Secretary to initiate suitable action against those who amendment the Goa Land Development and Building, Construction Regulations of 2010, favouring Raheja Universals Ltd.
The direction is issued in response to a memorandum submitted to the President by the Carmona Village Social and Welfare Forum requesting him to intervene and repeal the amendment favouring Rahejas. The memorandum was submitted in January this year.
The Forum also had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), in January this year, against the amended regulation with a prayer for an interim order staying the operation of the same. PIL calls for quashing of amendments.
Further, the Forum has prayed for a stay on the multi-family dwelling project of Rahejas Universals Ltd.
The Forum claims that it is not the then Congress government that carried out the amendment, but someone else has done the same.
The Forum alleged that, “The erstwhile Congress government coolly let (someone) to subtly draft and publish the amendment in the Official Gazette. In doing so, it imposed upon the unwary Goans arbitrary and irrational building construction regulations.”
The Forum claims that Raheja Universals Ltd is the beneficiary of the amended regulation, as the company has been again granted technical clearance, by the Town and Country Planning Department, for their housing project in Carmona. The Forum noted that the technical clearance granted to the Rahejas, in 2008, was revoked as it contravened established legal provisions.
“Following the new technical clearance, Carmona panchayat has also unjustly granted NOC to the Rahejas,” said Forum member Soccorro Miranda.
