Villages pulled from planning areas are governed by RP: HC
In a major setback to the TCP department's plans for allowing construction activities along the North Goa coastal belt, the high court last week held that the two ODPs of Calangute-Candolim and Arpora-Nagoa-Parra could not operate for these villages, and would not govern them.
It directed the state to follow Regional Plan 2021 for the approval of plans and the grant of permissions in these villages.
'Since the villages now fall in non-planning areas and the North Goa planning and development authority (NGPDA) has no jurisdiction, but the town and country planning department has assumed jurisdiction, it is open for it to process the permissions for development not as per the outlined development plan, which already lapsed, but as per the Regional Plan 2021,' stated the division bench comprising justices Bharati Dangre and Nivedita Mehta.
These villages, once withdrawn from planning areas, still continue to be governed by the Regional Plan as the planning area falls within the state of Goa and the TCP Act extends to the whole of Goa, the high court observed.
The high court order on the ODPs came after a series of legal back and forths, with the matter even reaching the Supreme Court, as the TCP department desperately tried to defend its implementation.
The high court stated that state govt was not justified in invoking executive powers in issuing an executive order (enabling continuance of impugned ODPs) on the premise that there was a vacuum in the absence of a statutory regime governing the withdrawn planning areas, and that to fill the gap, the executive must step in and make an 'order' governing areas which are withdrawn as planning areas.
As long as the Goa TCP Act continues to govern land development in the state through the regional plan, and since the Regional Plan 2021 is already in operation, there was no justification for the state in using the executive order, the court observed.
From issuing circulars to even an ordinance, state govt has been trying hard to keep alive the ODPs despite initially suspending them due to large-scale illegalities. But in between all the legal wrangles, the TCP department went ahead with zone changes on its own.
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