PANAJI
Abhijat Parrikar, son of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has claimed the petition filed by the Congress party against him for his eco-tourism project in Netravali is politically-motivated with the objective of extracting political mileage.
In his reply filed before the High Court, Abhijat, who claims that he is an agriculturist by profession and has carried out agricultural activities in the property from the year 2014 in the form of running a dairy farm, growing green fodder and selling cashew nuts, said that the petition has been filed solely to extract political mileage in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
“The present pseudo PIL is, infact, a Political Interest Petition filed at the behest of the politicians to score political mileage in the ensuing election,” Abhijat said also adding that his father Manohar Parrikar has nothing to do with his project and yet his name has been dragged into it.
He also argued that permissions for his project were granted back in 2014 and that challenging the project in the year 2019 would be unsustainable as there was a considerable delay.
“Out of 20 huts/villas for which approval was granted, 10 huts/villas have been completed in all respects. As far as the remaining 10 villas are concerned almost 85-90% of the work is complete. The petition is therefore grossly barred by the doctrine of delay and laches,” he said.
He argued that eco-tourism activities such as eco-tourist lodges restaurants, recreational facilities are permissible in eco-sensitive zones and on those grounds the petition should be dismissed.
A panch member of the Netravali panchayat Abhijit Dessai backed by the Congress party has filed a petition challenging the permissions issued to M/s Hideaway Hospitality alleging that the permissions have been given without following proper procedure by the Eco Sensitive Zone Monitoring Committee and that the then BJP led government had promulgated an ordinance which directly benefited Abhijat and helped him to get permissions quickly.
The petition seeks cancellation of permissions issued to the project.
