Panjim meat stall owners sue CCP for contempt

PANAJI

Failure of the Corporation of the City of Panaji to come up with a plan to rehabilitate the displaced meat stalls from the demolished old building until the planned new market is built withiin the deadline set by the Bombay High Court at Goa has landed the civic body in a soup.

The meat stall owners, Musthak Hussain Khatib and six others, have now sued the CCP for "contempt".

Lawyers for the meat traders -- Rohit Bras de Sa and Joel Pinto -- filed the contempt petitions before the Bombay High Court but when heard on Wednesday by the Division Bench of Justices M S Karnik and Nivedita Mehta, they sought and were granted leave to modify the petitions to personally implead CCP Commissioner Clen Madeira.

The petitions claim that the CCP failed to come up with the rehabilitation plan for them and there was a breach of multiple directions of the High Court in its earlier judgement of October 16, in which the civic body was directed to frame the plan in six weeks.

Justices Karnik and Mehta then passed an order to issue notice to the Chief Secretary and also granted the petitioners' lawyers leave to modify the petition and implead the CCP Commissioner as well.

The meat stall owners who occupied the ground floor of the demolished building adjacent to the fish market had been evicted by the CCP on grounds that the building was unsafe and posed a danger to the public in early September.

The action had led to a severe meat (mutton and beef) shortage in the capital and consumers were forced to rely on the few cold storage stores or meat sections of malls for their regular supplies.