Goemkarponn Desk
PANAJI: A group of individual unit owners in a multiple villa project at Anjuna received significant relief when the Bombay High Court in Goa overturned a closure order that the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) had issued in November of last year and requested that the board hold a new hearing.
These villa owners in the Waynar Construction Company project in Anjuna were given an order by the GSPCB to stop operating “homestay” businesses there. While the individual owners of some of these villas operate “homestay” businesses under license from the Tourism Department, others are solely residential.
The Bombay High Court’s single bench, led by Justice Avinash Gharote, quashed the GSPCB order and ordered the board to hold new hearings for the impacted individual owners and issue new orders accordingly.
Following the GSPCB order, the petitioners—Jennifer Gomes, La Olalian Estate Pvt. Ltd. (LA OLALIAN), Harish Gopalani, Ashwin Fernandes, and a few other villa owners—came before the High Court seeking relief.
Together with the State government, the North Goa Collector, and the GSPCB, among other respondents, the petitioners had also named the builder, Waynar Construction Pvt Ltd, as a respondent.
Waynar Construction Company carried out the Anjuna project, which included multiple separate villas: one Villa La-Alora, seven Villas La-Orilla, one Villa La-Orilla (II), twenty Villas La-Olian, and two Villas La-Olian.
The petitioners are the purchasers of a few of these villas, and they registered with the tourism department before starting their “home stay” business.
However, in response to a complaint filed by a Rita Rodrigues in June 2022 alleging that raw sewage was being released into nearby fields, the GSPCB ordered the closure of all the villas.
Following a site inspection the following month, the GSPCB issued an order for the closure on November 20 of last year.
