PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has directed the State government to set up a joint special cell comprising of high ranking officials from the Police, the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) and Collector to monitor the noise pollution levels at upcoming mega music event “Sunburn” and to ensure that the terms and conditions on which the organisers are granted permission are adhered to.
Disposing of a petition filed by Rajesh Sinary, a resident of Anjuna who had approached the High Court last year challenging permissions issued to Sunburn and alleging violations of the conditions of the permission, the High Court also ruled that the permissions for last year’s event -- which were issued within 24 hours of the organisers applying for permissions -- were illegal.
“The State Government must immediately constitute a Joint Special Cell comprising high- ranking officials from the police, the GSPCB, and the SDM/Collector. It shall be the responsibility of this Joint Special Cell to ensure that the permissions are granted for such mega events in accordance with the notified action plan, and further, the organisers of such mega events should scrupulously comply with the terms and conditions by which such permissions are granted and the provisions of the Noise Pollution Rules,” the High Court bench of Justices M S Sonak and Valmiki Sa Menezes said.
“The police officials and the GSPCB officials must coordinate with each other so that there is no recurrence of what happened between the 28th to 30th of December 2022. If the authorities find noise pollution levels are being exceeded or breached, they should immediately halt the event and seize the sound-generating equipment. In addition, the authorities must take all measures to ensure that the noise pollution levels are not breached at any such events,” the High Court said while directing that “high-ranking police officials, officers from GSPCB and the Collector/Deputy Collector must remain present at the venue to monitor compliances”.
The High Court’s orders to set up a joint special cell came on the suggestion of the Chief Secretary who in his report before the Court earlier this year said the joint committee would be the preferred way forward after last year the GSPCB officials could not succeed in their attempts (to stop the event) due to a lack of coordination between the police officials and the GSPCB officials.
The Chief Secretary reported to the High Court that though the GSPCB informed the police about the higher than permitted noise levels, the police didn’t act because “they were busy in monitoring and managing the huge crowd and, therefore, could not control the noise levels.”
The Chief Secretary told the court that the constitution of the joint special cell was necessary in order to prevent recurrences of incidents where noise pollution rules are breached with impunity and no effective action is taken for lack of coordination between the GSPCB, the police officials and the SDPO.
The High Court proceeded to declare that the permission dated 28.12.2022 issued to R-10 (Sunburn organisers) for holding the Sunburn music festival from 28 to 30 December 2022 was illegally issued and consequently the said permission “was illegal and liable so be quashed and set aside.”
“The GSPCB directly entertained the application from R-10 even before the same could be forwarded by the Deputy Collector/SDM after making an assessment. From the material placed on record, it appears that all the authorities, like the SDM and the GSPCB, were in a great hurry to issue R-10 permission to commence the festival between 28th and 30 December 2022 when R-10 applied for permission only on 27.12.2022. Some of the departments were bypassed,” the High court observed.
The High Court also directed the state to ensure that “if the applicant is a Company, only authorised representatives of the Company backed by the resolution of the Company can be permitted to apply on behalf of the Company.
“The authorities must obtain all details of the applicant Company and only thereafter process the applications. This is necessary because otherwise, a host of hyper-technical defences are raised to avoid liability after committing serious breaches. From the material placed before us, we find that R-10 often makes applications for permissions in different names. The authorities must, therefore, identify the applicant,” the High Court also said.
