Aldeia de Goa

ANJIM: In what could be termed as a major embarrassment to the government, the High Court has directed the Chief Secretary JP Singh to remain present in the Court today, if Town and Country Planning department fails to produce the file containing details of a construction project at Bambolim.


The Court has asked TCP department to produce the file containing Town and Country Planning approvals, plans and No Objection certificates in respect of the construction project coming up at the site of Goa Real Estate and Construction Ltd (GRECL, popularly known as Aldeia de Goa) today in the Court. Further, the Sarpanch and Secretary of Curca-Bambolim panchayat has to remain present in the Court today with all necessary documents.

The Division bench of Justice FI Rebello and Justice NA Britto passed this order while hearing an affidavit by Patricia Pinto, General Secretary, People's Movement for Civic Action (PMCA), who is one of the petitioner in a petition against GRECL.

The counsel for the petitioner, Norma Alvares, submitted that the Pinto had applied on August 21, 2007 to the Assistant Public Information Officer of the TCP department under the Right to Information Act for inspection of the file containing TCP approvals, plans and No Objection certificates in respect of the construction project coming up at the site in Bambolim, which is the subject matter of a petition filed by PMCA and Goa Foundation against GRECL.



However, Pinto was denied access to the information by a letter dated September 18, 2004, (much after the statutory period under the RTI Act) and was informed that the file could not be traced.



Even the effort to get some crucial documents from the Secretary of village panchayat of Curca/ Bambolim under RTI Act didn't materialize. On October 16, 2007, under RTI the petitioner requested for crucial documents listed at I-v so that the file that was told to be not traceable since it was send to the Block Development Officer's office in 2003, could be traced. However, on November 14, 2007, she received a formal letter from the Panchayat stating that neither the memorandum for the BDO's office nor the Panchayat letter sending the file to the BDO's office can be traced.



Not impressed with these submissions the Court observed that it is not possible for the files pertaining to a particular project to disappear overnight and asked the concerned authorities to produce the files today.