PANJIM: In a damning order, the High Court of Bombay at Goa on Wednesday stayed the operation of the ‘illegal’ circular issued by the Chief Town Planner on December 22, 2022 directing Town Planning offices to follow Outline Development Plans (ODPs) already withdrawn by the State government.
Based on such zoning certificates, the Collector, planning authorities and village panchayats were granting construction approvals.
The ODPs of Calangute-Candolim, Parra, Arpora and Nagoa were notified on December 15, 2022. However, the very next day, the State government issued an order recalling these five coastal villages as planning areas. Once an area was withdrawn from a planning area, the ODPs approved for the area lapsed.
But on December 22, 2022, the Chief Town Planner, ostensibly following on a decision taken by the Town and Country Planning Board (chaired by the Town and Country Planning Minister) took a decision to direct the town planning offices to issue zoning certificates in respect of these five villages as if the ODPs were still valid in law.
Based on this circular, the CTP (Panning) had directed the Town Planning offices to follow the approved ODPs of these five villages for scrutinising/issuing the application for construction, revisions, re-construction, sub-division of land, zoning, conversion, etc.
The High Court prima facie found that no such power is allowed to the Board. It therefore stayed the impugned circular and granted interim relief to the petitioners -- Goa Foundation
and another.
For all the above reasons, pending the hearing and final disposal of the petition, the division bench comprising Justice Mahesh Sonak and Justice Valmiki S A Menezes granted interim relief, staying the operation of the impugned circular dated December 22, 2022, and not to issue any further zoning certificates, conversion sanads without verifying the plot’s zone in the five villages.
During the hearing, Adv H D Naik, counsel for the NGPDA, submitted that between December 16 and 20, 2022, the NGPDA had issued 24 zone changed certificates. Accordingly, the Court clarified that based on these 24 zoning certificates, the respondents will not permit any conversion or development to take place, particularly where such conversion or development conflicts with Regional Plan 2021.
The Court has directed the Chief Town Planner to file an affidavit disclosing (full details, including names) of the zoning certificates or technical clearance orders issued based on the impugned circular dated December 22, 2022 within next
four weeks.
Earlier, the Calangute-Candolim was declared as planning areas in 2015 and the villages of Arpora, Nagoa and Parra were declared as planning areas in 2017 and were brought under the jurisdiction of North Goa Planning and Development Authority (NGPDA).
On April 27, 2022, the ODPs for these five villages were suspended because large-scale illegalities were suspected in their preparation and finalisation.