A Division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice M.S. Sonak and Justice Smt. M.S. Jawalkar issued notice on 2.12.2020 on a writ petition filed by four Parra villagers, challenging the declaration of Parra village as a Planning Area under the Town and Country Planning Act, and for setting aside the preparation and notification of the Outline Development Plan for Parra.
The Court ordered the petition to be placed on board on 21.12.2020.
The Parra petitioners include Claude Alvares, Casmiro Da Cunha, Agnelo Alphonso and Ms Genevieve Saldanha e Fernandes. Respondents include, besides the State of Goa, the Panchayat of Parra, NGPDA, Town and Country Planning Board and Director of Panchayats.
The Petitioners are all members of the Parra village Gram Sabha in Bardez Taluka, North Goa District, Goa State. They have moved the High Court for an order to quash and set aside the notification No. 28/10/TCP/2018/163 dated 25.1.2018 by which their village, i.e., Parra village in North Goa District, has been declared as a Planning Area and has been brought under the jurisdiction of the North Goa Planning and Development Authority (NGPDA).
By a subsequent Notification dated 10.9.2020, a draft Outline Development Plan (ODP) has been prepared for the village. By this notification, the Petitioners have become aware that the NGPDA is undertaking a final land use plan for the village which may soon become law.
Petitioners have pleaded that they have participated in several Gram Sabha meetings held to discuss the village land use and development plan including the notified Regional Plan 2021. They are filing this petition to enforce their constitutional rights to plan their own development which have been recently trampled upon by the inclusion of their village in the planning area of the NGPDA. Neither the Panchayat nor the Gram Sabha of the village has been consulted about this takeover of the planning powers of the Panchayat assigned to it under the Constitution of India. The NGPDA has now embarked on formulating the Outline Development Plan for the village, after publishing the Land Use Register and Map. These actions are contrary to the demands of the 73rd Constitutional amendment and against the law and spirit of the various provisions laid down in the Goa Panchayat Act, 1994 (hereinafter, “GPR Act”)
Hence this writ petition for enforcement of the petitioners’ constitutional rights.
1. The present petition raises the following challenges and issues of law:
a. Whether the notification of Parra village as a Planning Area under the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act 1974 without the consensus and approval of both – the Panchayat and Gram Sabha is sustainable?
b. Whether the Panchayat (and the Petitioners) can be divested, in a unilateral manner, of their Constitutional rights and duties connected with village level planning?
c. Whether a Planning Authority can enforce a Development Plan on a village, when the Constitution of India and the GPR Act 1994 require that the preparation of the village development plan be carried out by the village itself?
d. Whether the Goa Town and Country Planning Act, 1974 – which came into force in 1974 – can take precedence over the 73rd Constitutional amendment and the GPR Act, 1994 passed pursuant thereto and whether the provisions contained in Article 243ZD of the Constitution and incorporated in Section 239 of the GPR Act, 1994, would supersede and thus repeal the conflicting provisions in the Town & Country Planning Act, 1974?
e. Whether in the context of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment and the GPR Act, the role of the Town and Country Planning Department and the PDAs is more than advisory and its advice is binding on the Panchayats for decisions relating to changes in land use, development plan or in the issue of construction licences?
f. Whether any decision taken by a Planning Authority/Department – which is not the Panchayat – regarding the preparation of a land use plan, or approval of a project, or grant of an environment clearance, and which is contrary to the land use and development plan prepared and approved by the village panchayat is valid and enforceable?
