Bombay HC strikes down section of Goa Town and Country Planning Act, calls it private interest-driven

Panaji: The Goa Bench of Bombay High Court has struck down a section of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1974, that allowed the creation of zones within zones, holding that it was concerned with private landowners’ interests.

Three citizen organisations had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the HC contending that section 17 (2) of the Act was “mutilating” the Regional Plan. Notified in March 2023, the section was aimed at allowing the authorities to correct inadvertent errors or rectify inconsistent or incoherent zoning.

The Regional Plan is a long-term land-use development blueprint prepared by the Town and Country Planning Department of Goa to guide infrastructure, zoning, and environmental conservation in the state.

A division Bench of Justices Nivedita P Mehta and M S Karnik on Thursday struck down section 17 (2), holding that it was not in "furtherance of development in the public interest by maintaining a balance between sustainable development vis-a-vis environmental issues", but was concerned with private landowners' interests.

The petitioners had argued that the section was being misused to change the status of large tracts of land for commercial purposes.

According to the state, between March 2023 and January 2 of this year, there have been 353 approvals under section 17(2) which affect an area of about 26,54,286 square metres, noted the bench.

“The applications are being filed, entertained and conversions granted for which there is no outer limit. Almost all the conversions are from paddy fields, natural cover, no development zone and orchards to settlement zones,” the bench ruled.

The court further said that “such plot-by-plot conversion, creating a zone within a zone, virtually has the effect of mutilating the RP (Regional Plan) prepared after such an elaborate exercise”.

Goa Foundation, Khazan Society of Goa and Goa Bachao Abhiyan had filed the PIL in the HC in June 2023, challenging the constitutional validity of section 17(2) of the Act and seeking to quash it.

The petition said that the section vested “arbitrary, uncanalised and untrammelled powers” in the government to effect changes in the zoning of plots within the Regional Plan based on individual requests from private parties claiming to be victims of errors in the planning.