Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji

Panaji, Oct 27: The Bombay High Court at Goa has imposed costs of Rs 1 lakh each on four applicants for allegedly abusing the legal process to obstruct the removal of a Shivaji statue from Mormugao Port Authority (MPA) property at Sada Junction.

In an order pronounced on Monday, a division bench comprising Justice Valmiki Menezes and Justice Amit Jamsandekar described the applicants’ approach as “calculated and most dishonest”. The applicants are Rajendra Parab, Sanjiv Patil, Prajyot Vengurlekar and Yeshwant Ghonsekar.

The court dismissed their application seeking to invoke the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, holding that the law could not be applied on vague claims involving unidentified occupants.

“The provisions of the Public Premises Act cannot apply in a vacuum when the persons are unidentified and unknown,” the court observed. It noted that accepting the applicants’ arguments would effectively require notices to be issued to all unknown persons or even all residents of Vasco.

The bench also pointed out that its April 7 order directing the removal of the statue, its pedestal and surrounding constructions from MPA land had not been implemented.

The dispute concerns land owned by the MPA, where the statue was erected without the authority’s permission. The port authority had approached the court after repeated complaints to various authorities, including the police, deputy collector and Mormugao Municipal Council, allegedly failed to stop the encroachment and unauthorised construction.

The four applicants were not parties to the original petition. They first approached the Supreme Court challenging the April 7 order but withdrew their plea with permission to seek modification before the High Court.

They subsequently filed the present application, arguing that the Public Premises Act and the Supreme Court’s guidelines on demolition required due process before the statue could be removed.

The applicants claimed that local residents had occupied the site for decades, used it for dumping garbage and later cleaned and beautified the area before installing the statue. They also argued that the port authority had not been in possession of the property and had failed to object to the alleged encroachment.

However, the High Court found that the applicants had not identified the alleged occupants, those who erected the structure or the people who had supposedly dumped garbage at the site for decades. They had also not clearly stated that they themselves occupied the land or erected the statue.

The bench held that the applicants had withheld crucial particulars despite an ongoing police investigation into the port authority’s complaint. It concluded that the application lacked merit and was intended to obstruct implementation of the existing court order.

The court directed each applicant to pay Rs 1 lakh within one week, with the amount to be deposited with the Goa State Legal Services Authority.