PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has quashed and set aside the order passed by the Additional Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi which had ordered the demolition of the controversial structure being built in the vicinity of the historical Church of St Caetano in Old Goa for being passed without first issuing a notice to the affected party and thus being in violation of the principles of natural justice.
In doing so, the Bombay High Court bench of Justices ignored forceful submissions by the Save Old Goa Action Committee that pointed out to the fraud played by the property owners who deliberately deceived the authorities to show photographs of some different structure which was in fact existing at Parcem, claiming it to the old existing structure in the plot at Old Goa in order to get the orders for renovation, when in fact no such structure of 600 sq mts was existing on the plot.
“The impugned order dated 16/08/2022 is more particularly harping upon alleged suppression or fraud played by Mrs Suvarna Suraj Lotlikar with the said authority while obtaining permission for the renovation of the said house. Apart from specifying the fraud, if any, such orders cannot be made without compliance with the principles of natural justice. Assuming such orders are administrative, still natural justice cannot be bypassed because the impugned order requires demolition of ninety percent completed works in the teeth of three orders made by this Court on the same subject,” the High Court observed.
“The matter in hand clearly revealed that permission was granted by the Central Government i.e. the Archaeological Department itself to the predecessor in title of the petitioner for the reconstruction of the existing dilapidated house. There is no allegation that the works at the site breach the terms and conditions of the permission. That is why such permissions have been left intact by the competent authority. Over ninety percent of the works are already completed as claimed by the Petitioners,” the High Court also said.
The properties have been bought by Corvus Infrastructure Pvt Ltd from Suvarna Suraj Lotlikar and Manish Munot, the husband of BJP leader Shaina NC.
It was incumbent upon the said authority to call upon Suvarna Suraj Lotlikar or the petitioner being the successor to explain. By not giving such an opportunity, the said authority has acted clearly in violation of principles of natural justice and therefore such action on the part of said authority cannot in any way be permitted to be considered as valid in the eyes of law,” the High Court said.
“The minimum expectation from such authority is to give an opportunity to the party concerned to put up his defence before passing such a drastic order of demolition. Such order cannot by any stretch of imagination be construed as purely an administrative function. Powers given to such authority under the statutes must be exercised by the procedure laid down by law, which includes following principles of natural justice. The action of (the authorities) certainly carries civil consequences and therefore the natural justice demand that the party should have been heard by giving appropriate opportunity before passing such a drastic order,” the High Court said while terming the order “bad in law and requires to be quashed and set aside for not following principles of natural justice.”
At the centre of the controversy is the method used to obtain permissions for the construction. Since, no permissions for fresh constructions are allowed within 200mt radius from a notified archaeological structure, the project proponents applied for licence of repair/reconstruction claiming there existed a previous structure that was destroyed out of disuse and adverse events that they were seeking to rebuild.
While there did exist a small ‘shed’ known as loja in Portuguese that was used to store coconuts at the site, the proponents claimed that the structure that existed at the site, that they were seeking to rebuild, was much larger and annexed a photograph of a palatial ancient-looking house claiming it was an old photograph of the existing structure proposed for repairs to prove their claims.
That house, however, was found to be still standing and located some 50-km away at a village at Parcem, in Goa’s northernmost taluka of Pernem.
Archaeological superintendent of Goa circle K Amarnath Ramkrishna confirmed as much in a letter he shot off to Arvin Manjul Director (Monuments - II) who had initially granted permission for the repairs.
