MAPUSA
The Mapusa Chief Officer’s recent decision to grant part occupancy to the controversial building belonging to developer Venkatesh Prabhu Moni smacks of bias and raises more questions than answers.
In June this year, at least 38 unit holders had got a huge relief after their prolonged battle in the RERA court resulted in getting the possession of their units in the controversial project Prabhu Chambers at Angod, Mapusa through the Principal District Sessions Court.
The court through its bailiff had given lawful possession of the units by break opening the doors on June 27 and had directed the unit holders to take necessary steps to obtain occupancy for their units.
Based on the court order, the unit holders applied to the Chief Officer of Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) to grant them part occupancy of the building Prabhu Chambers.
In the meantime, the developer Venkatesh Prabhu Moni used the system to his advantage and approached the High Court of Bombay at Goa asking the Mapusa Municipal Council to issue Occupancy Certificate to his project Prabhu Chambers.
The High Court in its order on August 30 directed the MMC to dispose of Prabhu Moni’s application seeking occupancy certificate in accordance with law and on its own merits.
“We have not issued any positive direction for either issue or rejection of the Occupancy Certificate. We have only directed the MMC to dispose of the petitioner’s application seeking Occupancy Certificate in accordance with law and on its own merits,” the HC order said presided by Judges M S Sonak and Bharat Deshpande.
Incidentally, the MMC conducted an inspection of the building on September 1 and the Chief Officer Chandrakant Shetkar in his report pointed out that M/s Prabhu Constructions had failed to rectify certain deficiencies which included absence of grills for the windows, lifts not functional, no permanent power supply and pumps were being used to drain out water.
Interestingly, the Chief Officer ignored the application made by the unit holders for the occupancy but went ahead and issued part occupancy to the developer despite deficiencies in the construction.
“The chief officer’s order granting part occupancy is illegal and contrary to his report pointing to the deficiencies. The developer’s occupancy certificate was revoked by the municipality because of certain shortfalls in the construction. How can someone restore the occupancy when the deficiencies are not corrected?” said a former chief officer requesting anonymity.
The matter is now for adjudication before the Director of Urban Development, Gurudas Pilarnkar who had last week stayed the order of the Chief Officer granting the occupancy certificate to the developer.
