High Court notice to Goa govt over fees waved for land zone corrections

The High Court of Bombay at Goa Thursday issued notice to the state government, Secretary Town and Country Planning department, Town and Country Planning Department, Directorate of Vigilance and former chief town planner in a petition seeking directions to the authorities to recover the fees allegedly 'illegally waived' under a contentious provision of the Goa Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act.
According to the petitioner, activist Swapnesh Sherlekar, the fees for correction of certain land zones was illegally waived under section 17 (2) of the Goa Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act on the 'specious' ground that 'deletion of proposed road fee is not applicable'.
The section 17(2), which was introduced through an amendment to the TCP Act and notified in 2023, allows the conversion of privately owned plots in Goa's Regional Plan 2021, based on individual applications from such parties to 'correct inadvertent errors' and 'rectify inconsistent or incoherent zoning'. The government notified the fees for correction of zones under section 17 (2) of the Act on March 16, 2023. Subsequently, the revised fee for zone changes was notified through the supplement official gazette on March 28 last year. The HC read down the section in March this year.
The petition states in the list of cases considered for correction of zone under section 17 (2) of the Act, several entries contained a notation 'deletion of proposed road fee not applicable' without any statutory basis for such exemption.
The petition stated that among such cases were properties belonging to TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane, who is also a respondent in the petition, alleging that he 'benefited from an unauthorized exemption of fees'. The petition said there are 'numerous' cases of deletion of proposed roads since the Act was notified, which require scrutiny for similar unauthorised exemptions. It further said that there is no provision in the TCP Act or any rules, regulations or notifications thereunder that provide exemption of fees for deletion of proposed roads under section 17 (2) of the Act.
The petition said the respondent authorities have acted with 'manifest arbitrariness, mala fide and abuse of power in exempting certain applications from payment of statutory fees without any legal basis or justification.' The petition further claimed that the respondent authorities have failed to discharge their duties in accordance with law and have instead acted in a manner that suggests collusion to confer undue benefit on certain individuals at the expense of the public exchequer.
On Thursday, the High Court heard the submissions of the petitioners.
In the order, the court said: 'At this stage, we deem it appropriate to issue notice to respondent 1 to 4 as well as respondent 6 in the capacity of chief town planner (planning)…' The Court also directed the respondents to file an affidavit in response within three weeks.
The court said it has 'noted the specific pleadings in the petition, which revolve around the properties' belonging to Rane, but did not issue a notice to him.

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