PANAJI
In a major relief to a group of individual unit owners in a multiple villa project at Anjuna, the Bombay High Court at Goa quashed a closure order issued by the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) in November last year and asked the board to give them a fresh hearing.
The GSPCB had ordered these owners of villas in the project built by Waynar Construction Company in Anjuna to halt their ‘homestay’ businesses there. Some of these villas are purely residential whereas in others, the individual owners are operating ‘homestay’ businesses, licensed by the Tourism Department.
While quashing the GSPCB order, the single bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice Avinash Gharote asked the board to give the affected individual owners a fresh hearing and issue a suitable order again.
The petitioners, Jennifer Gomes, La Olalian Estate Pvt. Ltd. (LA OLALIAN), Harish Gopalani, Ashwin Fernandes and some other villa owners had approached the High Court for relief following the GSPCB order.
The petitioners had also named the builder -- Waynar Construction Pvt Ltd -- a respondent along with the State government, the North Goa Collector and GSPCB among others, the respondents.
The project at Anjuna had been executed by Waynar Construction Company comprising several independent villas -- one Villa La-Alora, seven Villas La-Orilla, one Villa La-Orilla (II), 20 Villas La-Olian and two villas La-Olian.
The petitioners are buyers of some of these villas and had begun operating ‘home stay’ business after registering with the Tourism Department.
However, the GSPCB had ordered the closure of all the villas following proceedings in a complaint that raw sewage is being released into adjacent fields filed by one Rita Rodrigues in June 2022.
The GSPCB had conducted a site inspection the following month and ordered the closure on November 20 last year.
However, following the closure order, the project promoters approached the GSPCB on behalf of those villa owners using them purely for residential purpose following which the order was modified in February this year restricting the closure directive only to those villas operating as home stays.
During the proceedings before the High Court, the GSPCB suggested that it will issue fresh orders after holding a hearing again in lieu of which Justice Gharote recorded the submission and quashed the earlier order and directed that the matter should be decided within 45 days.
