Might connect govt officers’ properties to pay compensation to Birch victims: HC | Goa Information – The Instances of India

Panaji: The Bombay excessive court docket stated on Tuesday that it will think about attaching the property of these liable for the Birch by Romeo Lane hearth tragedy — together with govt functionaries — and auctioning them to pay compensation to the households of victims.“The time has come when a loud and clear message ought to exit that whoever is prospering on shady companies ought to get able to pay…,” said a division bench comprising justices Suman Shyam and Amit Jamsandekar.The bench noticed that there are numerous statutory our bodies enjoined with sure duties of sustaining legislation and order, and so on, in these places. It stated that these are the accountability of govt. “We aren’t going to get into it,” the court docket stated. Nonetheless, the bench stated it will step in “the place we discover there’s deliberate negligence and dereliction of responsibility resulting in lack of human lives”. “One has to see the way it occurred and repair accountability. Other than that, apart from placing them behind bars, we are going to even think about attaching their properties and placing them to public sale sale,” the bench added.Other than this, the state will probably be at liberty to take motion, the judges stated.In the course of the listening to, advocate common Devidas Pangam informed the court docket that 25 individuals died within the hearth and that the PIL earlier than the court docket seeks that compensation be paid to them. He stated that the Birch homeowners, who have been made events within the suo motu petition and are presently in custody, must be those accountable to pay this compensation. He added that the victims have been labourers whose households should not have the means and sources.The court docket requested him what can be cheap compensation, to which Pangam replied that there’s a formulation prescribed by the Supreme Courtroom, which he would place earlier than the bench.Advocate Rohit Bras de Sa, amicus curiae within the petition, then informed the court docket that cash also needs to be equally recovered from the sarpanch of the Arpora-Nagoa panchayat, who granted NOCs opposite to legislation with none occupancy certificates or permissions, as he has additionally amassed numerous wealth. “Solely when they’re made to pay will a message exit loud and clear, and they’ll take their jobs critically,” he stated.It was then that the bench stated that the HC would direct attachment of properties of any official who’s discovered complicit.Pangam stated that each one coastal panchayats have been additionally made events within the petition to determine their duties, as there’s a “major problem” within the coastal belt. However the excessive court docket stated it doesn’t wish to combine up points.Final month, the excessive court docket issued notices to 52 events, together with all coastal panchayats and municipal our bodies, over illegalities by business institutions, principally functioning with out acquiring statutory provisions.