Panaji: Erecting a memorial dedicated to former Chief Minister and Defence Minister late Manohar Parrikar at Panaji’s Miramar would damage the beach and the ecology of the area, a public interest litigation filed at the Bombay High Court in Goa said on Monday.
The petitioner Devika Sequeira, a local resident, has also alleged in her petition, that beaches as public spaces should not be used to host memorials of late political leaders because governments holding a majority, in the future, would insist on more memorials in public areas dedicated to their party leadership.
“The matter came up for hearing today before the division bench of the High Court in Goa. But because of the notification of the Bombay High Court that only urgent matters should be taken up in view of the coronavirus pandemic, the matter will now be heard in regular course at the end of the notification period,” the petitioner’s lawyer Rohit Bras D’sa told reporters. The High Court bench has not admitted the petition yet.
In the petition, Sequeira has said that “all public beaches should be protected from constructions of any kind including memorials and preserved for future generations” and demanded an immediate stoppage of “all constructions of the proposed memorial on the sandy Miramar beach”.
The petitioner has also cited several alleged environmental violations which could take place, if the memorial was allowed to be constructed over an area of 1255 sq mts on the beach in Panaji, which was Parrikar’s legislative assembly constituency.
“The said location of the memorial falls in sandy terrain with natural sand dune. The petitioner states that along the river front is a no development zone from 100 meters distance of the high tide line and whether the area falls under CRZ-II or CRZ-III does not make any difference,” the petition states.
“The petitioner states that even if area is considered to be CRZ-III nothing can come up at all strictly in the No Development Zone,” it also adds.
In his budget speech last year, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that the BJP-led coalition state government had made a provision of Rs 10 crore for construction of the memorial.
Parrikar died in office on March 17 last year.
