Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has asked the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) to submit new construction and rehabilitation plans to relocate the vendors evicted from the Panjim fish market building.
The Court opined that it appears to be a case where somebody was trying to evict them and asked the CCP to submit a rehabilitation plan to relocate the affected eight vendors from the Panjim fish market building. The matter has now been posted for further hearing on Monday, September 2.
During the previous hearing last week, the High Court had asked the CCP to submit a structural stability report of the sealed Panjim Municipal Market building and whether the eight occupants be relocated somewhere else or in the redeveloped building.
Accordingly the CCP Commissioner Clen Madeira filed an affidavit stating that on August 13, orders were issued to the vendors to vacate the premises considering the dangerous state of the Panjim Municipal Fish Market building and given the imminent danger which was required to be averted in the interest of public safety to avoid occurrence of a mishap or a calamity.
He stated that the Talathi had inspected the building on July 27, 2024, and reported that the building was in a dilapidated condition whereby the parts of the building on each floor were collapsing while the remaining portion of the building was also posing danger to life and property and may collapse at any time. The Commissioner in his affidavit has also attached photographs of the building.
The petitioners counsel Adv Rohit Bras De Sa pointed out that in the affidavit, a report of the Government Polytechnic College students states that the ground and first floor can be used if repairs are carried out while the CCP was replying on the Talathi’s report saying that the building is in dilapidated condition. When engineers' reports say that the building is not going to fall and can be repaired, how can CCP rely on Talathi's report? Talathi is not a competent person, he said.
Adv De Sa further said that the eviction of vendors had caused shortage of meat in the Panjim market.