Goa Khabar: Justice Gautam Patel, retired judge of the Bombay High Court in a stirring speech said that Goa needed a people’s referendum to throw out the controversial, section 39A of the Town and Country Planning Act.
Justice Patel, who was delivering a special lecture on the occasion of the launch of the fifth edition of “Fish, curry and rice” Goa Foundation’s landmark book on environment minced no words when he said, “Goa is not meat in a butcher’s shop which can be carved out and sold.”
Referring to section 39 A as the “gorilla in the room”, the retired judge bemoaned the fact that Goa was on the brink of an environmental disaster. “This section allows the chief town planner to play God and makes the common citizens of Goa mere supplicants. Section 39A is fundamentally wrong. The people of Goa must have the right to vote against this section,” Justice Patel said.
The retired judge also bemoaned the fact that Goans had become the “others” in their own state. “Non-Goans are being allowed to take charge of the state. Goa is being dismantled bit by bit. This is not alright, ” Justice Patel said.
Addressing the tribal women of Chimbel in chaste Marathi, the retired judge congratulated them for undertaking their 44-day fast to beat back the state government’s plan to build a large mall on their forest lands. He said, “Your victory is not yours alone. You have served a warning to the government, that they cannot ignore the citizens’ voice.”
Earlier in the evening, Justice Ferdino Rebello, architect of the “Enough is Enough” people’s movement hit out at the Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant for terming environmental activists as “Urban Naxalites”, stating that the Constitution of India gave every citizen of this country a right to fight for their environment. “People in power must choose their words carefully,” he said.
One of the key highlights of this evening’s function was the felicitation of 16 eco-warriors who have been fighting relentlessly to preserve and protect the ecology of Goa. A touching tribute was also paid to the memory of South Goa activist Diana Tavares, who recently passed away.
