PANAJI
The Goa government has promulgated an ordinance “the Goa (Regulation of House Building Advance) Ordinance, 2020” in a bid to give legal sanctity to its decision to do away with a housing scheme for Goa government employees, but the ordinance has led to a political storm over a controversial clause which debars anyone from instituting legal proceedings against the government on account of the ordinance.
The Goa (Regulation of House Building Advance) Ordinance, 2020 was assented by Goa Governor B S Koshyari on September 12 and was notified in the Goa government gazette on September 17.
The ordinance decrees that the House Building Advance admissible to beneficiary “shall stand cancelled/abolished with effect from the appointed date” with the appointed date that is the day the ordinance comes into force.
Section 7 of the ordinance bars against the institution of legal proceedings decreeing that “no suit, prosecution or other legal proceedings shall be maintained against the Government
or any of its Officers or persons duly appointed or authorised by it in respect of any action or any order or direction issued or taken or purported to be issued or taken under the provisions of this Ordinance including on the directions/executive Instructions issued,” the controversial section reads.
Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat was the first to voice his objection.
“With Governor of Goa @BSKoshyari approving the @GovtofGoa decision to stop House Building Allowance Scheme with a diktat of ban on challenging the order in any Court of Law is against democratic rights of citizens & complete injustice on hard working employees,” Kamat tweeted.
Similarly the Goa Forward Party (GFP) has condemned the Goa government move to issue an ordinance for scrapping the HBA scheme for the government servants and has objected to the language in the ordinance saying that no government servant can challenge the ordinance.
“This is a heartless government and this government is worse than what we faced during the emergency,” said GFP Vice President Durgadas Kamat.
The State government in May through a circular scrapped the Scheme initiated in 1988 for the government servants. The government had decided to charge prevailing bank interests to the outstanding housing loan advance from June onwards.
GFP Vice President alleged that the installment towards HBA that has been deducted from the salaries of the government servants will cause additional burden to them.
