The State government has been given until Friday to submit its affidavit on the bunch of petitions, including the suo motu petition after failing to submit its say in the case against bringing Goa under the jurisdiction of the principal bench of the NGT in New Delhi.
PANAJI
However, sources in the government have informed that the State government would in its affidavit submit that they would be agreeable to setting up a circuit bench of the NGT in Goa.
"The affidavit will be filed before the next hearing which will be held next week and the case is expected to be finally disposed the following week on September 25," a source in the government has informed.
When the case was taken up, petitioners told the court, in response to the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change affidavit that a circuit bench of the National Green Tribunal could be set up in Goa which could meet once in two weeks or twice a month and could be set up either at the SPACES building in Panaji or in the vacated premises of the District Court at Panaji, near the GTDC's Panaji residency.
The Union Government submitted its affidavit before the High Court detailing how it arrived at its decision to rejig the NGT jurisdictions to bring Goa under the ambit of the principal bench in New Delhi including that the proposal was first sent by the previous government then led by Laxmikant Parsekar to set up a circuit bench of the NGT in Goa.
However, when Manohar Parrikar took over as chief minister he sent a fresh proposal to bring Goa under the jurisdiction of the NGT in New Delhi which was then accepted and a notification
issued.
The notification was met with uproar by the activist community in the State with several petitions, including a suo motu petition taken up by the High Court against the decision.
