PANAJI
Panaji Mayor Surendra Furtado has charged the ex-commissioner of the city corporation of submitting a false affidavit in the High Court in connection with the illegal occupants at municipal market.
A two-page letter to present commissioner Ajit Roy refers to various anomalies into court submissions by Deepak Desai, who was transferred from the Corporation of City of Panaji a few days ago.
“It is stated to the court that CCP had issued total 471 notices to illegal occupants. Out of these, 223 notices are disposed of, and of these, 112 parties have filed appeals before the District Court. Then what further action is taken by the ex-commissioner in respect of the remaining 111 cases who have not appealed against his eviction order?” the Mayor has questioned.
In a detail by Desai to the court stating that after April 2017, the commissioner disposed of 25 cases out of the pending 148 cases; the Mayor has asked, “What is the meaning of disposing cases? Have these 25 shops/stalls been sealed or taken possession of?”
He also sought to know, what action has been taken against the remaining 123 cases since July 2017.
Records show that 37 shops were sealed in the year 2010 since these were found closed, although allotted of which, 14 were unsealed thereafter. In these circumstances, Furtado alleged Desai of giving a false statement before the High Court that he has sealed 22 shops in the municipal market and they are in the custody of the CCP, thus misleading the court, the Mayor commented.
The High Court’s order on July 31, 2017, extended the time for taking action against illegal occupants in the municipal market. It had also ordered to submit a progress report every three months.
Furtado has asked the present commissioner Ajit Roy to submit the anomalies by his predecessor to the court, which is hearing contempt petition on the recovery of dues into the matter and expedite the eviction cases under the Public Premises Act which are pending before the commissioner since 2015.