Reagan Rodrigues Represented by His Poa Rousseau Rodrigues v. Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority

NGT5 Sept 2024IA No. 218/2024 in Appeal No. 6/2024

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

Appeal against a Coastal Zone Management Authority order. Applicant sought to produce late documents obtained via RTI to prove environmental violation and prayed for remand. The Tribunal rejected the application to produce documents and dismiss the remand prayer to prevent abuse of process, directing the appellant to argue on existing merits. An amendment application was allowed for listing.

What did the court decide?

I.A. No.218 and No.60 rejected; I.A. No.76 listed for objections by 22.11.2024.

Reagan Rodrigues Represented by His Poa Rousseau… — Environment and Pollution | NGT (2024)

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(Pune Bench)

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Item No.5

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BEFORE THE NATIONAL GREEN TRIBUNAL WESTERN ZONE BENCH, PUNE

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THROUGH PHYSICAL HEARING (WITH HYBRID OPTION)

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Appeal No.06/2024 (WZ) I.A. No.76/2024 (WZ), I.A. No.218/2024 (WZ) & I.A. No.60/2024 (WZ)

Mr. Reagan Rodrigues

…..Appellant

Versus

Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority & Ors.

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….Respondents

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Date of hearing: 05.09.2024

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CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE DINESH KUMAR SINGH, JUDICIAL MEMBER HON’BLE DR. VIJAY KULKARNI, EXPERT MEMBER

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Appellant : Appellant in-person Respondents : Ms. Manasi Joshi, Advocate for R-1/GCZMA Mr. Aniroodh Sardesai, Advocate for R-2/Pvt. Party Mr. Shubham Priolkar, Advocate for R-3/Dy. Collector

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ORDER

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I.A. No.218/2024(WZ)

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By this I.A., the applicant/appellant has prayed that the

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documents, which are annexed with this application, may be taken on record.

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It is submitted by the applicant/appellant that the present appeal has been filed being aggrieved by the impugned order passed by the respondent No.1- GCZMA, whereby proceeding against the respondent No.2-Mr. Antonio Jose Passanha has been dropped.

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It is further submitted by the applicant/appellant that certain additional facts have come within the knowledge of the applicant/appellant through one document obtained by the appellant

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Page 1 of 5

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from the office of respondent No.1. Therefore, in order to assist this Tribunal to adjudicate this appeal more effectively, he desires to produce the said documents i.e. letter dated 28.06.2024 along-with the survey plan of property bearing Survey No.51/1 of Cavelossim Village showing the delineation of the CRZ line in the said property.

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It is further submitted in this I.A. that the said documents could not be produced earlier as the same has been obtained by the applicant/appellant subsequent to the filing of the present appeal but no reason has been given as to why he obtained a copy of the same subsequent to the filing of the present appeal and not prior to the passing of the impugned order by the GCZMA and as to why the same has not been placed earlier before the GCZMA for consideration. The said documents are now being said to be necessary to be brought on record to prove that the respondent No.2 has the subject structure in NDZ in violation of the Environment Protection Act and that in-spite of due diligence, the same could not be produced on record before the GCZMA earlier. Therefore, he submits that grave prejudice would be caused to the appellant if the said documents would not be taken on record.

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We are of the view that if any document was already in public domain prior to the passing of the impugned order and that the GCZMA ought to have taken cognizance of the same on its own, that would be a matter of argument at the stage of final hearing. But now, we cannot permit any documents to be taken on record more so because the sole prayer, at this stage, being made by the applicant/appellant is that after taking these documents on record, the matter may be remanded to the authority concerned for being decided afresh.

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Page 2 of 5

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We deprecate this practice being adopted by appellant because if this practice is allowed to be adopted by us in this case, the similar cases would start coming before us with the prayers that any document may be brought on record and remand of the matter back to the authority concerned, may be prayed. Therefore, we do not find any force in the argument made by the applicant/appellant and are of the view that this I.A. should be rejected and is accordingly, rejected. We direct the applicant/appellant to argue the present appeal on merits.

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I.A. No.218/2024(WZ) stands disposed of accordingly.

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I.A. No.60/2024 (WZ)

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This application has been filed by the applicant/appellant with the prayers that the documents, which are filed with the present application, may be taken on record.

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In this I.A., we find that the same facts are mentioned, which are already submitted by the applicant/appellant in I.A. No.218/2024(WZ) with respect to taking on record additional documents, that he could not obtain them prior to the passing of the impugned order by the GCZMA, which are mentioned in para no.3 from serial nos.(i) to (xxv).

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We again are of the view that these documents should have been brought on record by the applicant/appellant before the GCZMA prior to the passing of the impugned order because no justifiable hindrance is found to be there in procuring these documents on earlier occasion when the proceedings were going on before the GCZMA.

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Our domain is only to assess the correctness of the order passed by the GCZMA on merits, on the basis of evidence, which was laid by the applicant/appellant before the GCZMA. Therefore, applicant/appellant

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Page 3 of 5

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was at liberty to place all those documents before the GCZMA on his own and make prayer for consideration of the same and there was no need for this Tribunal to pass any order directing the GCZMA to entertain the said documents for deciding the matter afresh. Applicant/appellant candidly admitted before us that GCZMA has never been made any such prayer. We leave it open to the GCZMA to consider the matter, if the applicant/appellant approaches them.

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In view of above, I.A. No.60/2024(WZ) also stands disposed of having no force.

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I.A. No.76/2024 (WZ)

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By this I.A., applicant/appellant prays for an amendment to be allowed in the present appeal as stated in para no.5, as follows:-

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“ Para 2(XXXI): The Appellant states that pursuant to filing of the present appeal, the Appellant came in possession of various documents obtained under the R.T.I Act 2005 which clearly establishes the fact that the water channel abutting the property of Respondent No.2 is the tributary/distributary of River Sal having tidal influence. The facts contained in these documents also reveal the ground reality at loco showing the existence of the tributary/distributary and nullifying the false claim of Respondent No.2 that there was a breach of a sluice gate at the mouth of the said tributary/distributary and due to its non-maintenance it has led to inlet of river water in the alleged poiem. The additional documents/evidence produced by the Appellant clearly exposes the biased conduct of the Respondent No.1 in supporting the illegality of the Respondent No.2 by passing the cryptic, unlawful and arbitrary Impugned Order.”

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Applicant/appellant submits that memo of the present appeal needs some amendment by adding an additional prayer by adding para no.10AA after para 10A, to the following effect:-

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“ 10AA. In the alternative, to prayer 10-A, for an order of this Hon'ble Tribunal remanding the matter back to the Respondent No.1 with a direction to hear the matter afresh based on the additional evidence/documents produced by the Appellant in the present appeal.”

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Page 4 of 5

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The learned counsel for respondent No.1- GCZMA and respondent No.2- Pvt. Party have submitted before us that they have received a copy of this I.A. yesterday only. Therefore, they should be allowed some time to file objection against the same. We allow them two weeks’ time for the same.

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The learned counsel Mr. Shubham Priolkar representing respondent No.3- The Dy. Collector, Fatorda, Goa submits before us that he has not been provided a copy of this amendment application. Therefore, we direct the applicant/appellant to serve a copy of the same to the respondent No.3 through e-mail within two days and thereafter, respondent No.3 may file objection against the same, if any, within two weeks thereafter.

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Put up this matter for further consideration on 22.11.2024

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Dinesh Kumar Singh, JM

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Dr. Vijay Kulkarni, EM

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September 05, 2024 Appeal No.06/2024 (WZ) I. A. No.76/2024 (WZ) & I.A. No.218/2024 (WZ) P.Kr

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Page 5 of 5

Reagan Rodrigues Represented by His Poa Rousseau Rodrigues v. Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

Reagan Rodrigues Represented by His Poa Rousseau Rodrigues v. Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

What the court decided

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Issues for consideration

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Coram

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