NARCINVA YESHWANT SALDANHA Vs. STATE OF GOA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RULE made returnable forthwith by consent. Heard Mr. Rebello for the petitioners, Mr. Coelho Pereira, Advocate General, for the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 and Mr. Diniz for the respondent No. 3.

(2.) THIS is a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking against the respondent Government an order or a direction quashing and setting aside the Notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (vide Exhibit "a" annexed to the petition) which was issued on 5-1-1993 as also the declaration under section 6 (Exhibit "c") made consequent thereto. A provisional injunction was also sought restraining the respondents from taking possession of the land of the petitioners pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit. No interim relief was granted in the petition and, ultimately, the Government has produced on record Certificate, Exhibit "b", (page 111) showing that the possession of the land in question was taken by the Government on 22nd August, 1994.

(3.) THE facts leading to the present petition pertain to the problem of garbage disposal faced by the Municipal Council of Panaji as well as the respondents on account of which the Government were obliged to set a Committee for introducing a scheme. The garbage collected from the city of Panaji was being regularly dumped scatteredly, without any treatment, within the precincts of Chimbel and a strip of land which had been acquired by the Government for the road widening at Kodamba Plateau, namely, the road which leads from Chimbel to Old Goa, via Kadamba. It was felt by the respondents that the said place was posing health hazard to the nearby citizens of the area and there had been objections to that effect from the residents of the neighbouring village. The respondent government through the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, therefore, entrusted the work of preparation of a community based Solid Waste Management project to the Regional Water and Sanitation Group of South Asia appointed by the World Bank and the Central National Development Plan. The work of the preparation of the project was entrusted to the Committee sometime in 1991. After the field investigations, the Committee found, as noted in final Report submitted in 1993, the following facts :-