PANAJI
The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) has decided to conduct a procedural process for allocating temporary stalls it has built adjacent the fish market to the six beef traders who had been displaced with the demolition of the multi-storey old market building.
The move comes after legal advice and is likely to delay by a few days the rehabilitation of the six beef, mutton and poultry traders who occupied the ground-floor shops of the demolished building.
"The allocation of the stalls to these beef traders must be done by following proper procedure. Most likely by next week it will be completed," said Bento Lorena who heads the CCP's market committee.
The old market building built by the CCP's predecessor -- Panjim Municipal Council -- in the mid-1980s was demolished in mid-October last year after structural audits declared it unsafe and the North Goa Collector directed to raze it by invoking the Disaster Management Act.
The action led to a protracted legal battle between the CCP and the meat traders which even reached before the Supreme Court of India and lasted for over three months.
The traders had first approached the Bombay High Court which directed the CCP to rehabilitate them. However, the latter approached the Supreme Court of India challenging the High Court order but the Apex Court too insisted that the traders be accommodated in proper stalls rejecting the civic body's proposal to give them space to sell meat like the fish-sellers sell.
The Apex Court directed the CCP to 'rehabilitate the six traders with temporary arrangements but ruled that lease rights must be fought via separate civil suits in appropriate courts.
