PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa on Thursday quashed and set aside an order of the Director of Tourism, the competent authority under the Goa Tourist Places (Protection and Maintenance) Act, 2001 that had ordered M/s Salgaocar Mining Industries Pvt Ltd to pay an amount of Rs 166.41-crore as costs of having to remove the M V River Princess, an ore carrier, that ran aground along the Candolim beach in 2000.
The division bench of Justices A S Chandurkar and Nivedita P Mehta, ruled that the order violated the principles of natural justice and that the competent authority would have to undertake the exercise afresh after complying with the principles of natural justice and giving an opportunity to the petitioner M/s Salgaocar Mining Industries Pvt Ltd to be heard or to contest the amount of expenses sought to be recovered from it.
Salgaocar Mining Industries, a company run by former MLA Anil Salgaocar (since deceased), currently has his son Arjun Salgaocar listed as one of its directors.
“It is an admitted fact that the original order dated 15/07/2019 was passed by the Competent Authority without granting any opportunity to the petitioner… There cannot be any doubt that an order passed under Section 8 of the Act of 2001 [The Goa Tourist Places (Protection and Maintenance) Act, 2001] results in civil consequences qua the person from whom such recovery of such expenses or costs are required to be made. It is well settled that an order resulting in civil consequences ought to be passed after complying with the principles of natural Justice. The provisions of Section 8 of the Act of 2001 do not specifically exclude the applicability of principles of natural justice,” the High Court said.
“On a reading of the Act of 2001 and especially Section 8 thereof we do not find any reason to hold that the principles of natural justice stand excluded even by implication. The action of recovering expenses and costs for removing the nuisance does result in civil consequences qua the person from whom they are to be recovered. In our view, the appellate Authority committed an error in not giving due importance to the aspect of compliance of the principles of natural justice. Hence, the order dated 15/07/2019 passed by the Competent Authority as well as the order dated 28/06/2024 passed by the Appellate Authority are liable to be quashed and set aside. We order accordingly,” the High Court also said.
The Merchant Vessel, M V River Princess owned by the Salgaocar Industries, which broke anchor due to cyclonic winds and ran aground at the Candolim beach in June 2000, was declared as a nuisance on 19/07/2003 under the Act of 2001. On 30/03/2009, it was also declared as a State Disaster by the State Disaster Management Authority.
Salgaocar Mining Industries argued before the Court that the initial order dated 15/07/2019 passed by the Competent Authority was liable to be set aside on the ground that it was passed in breach of principles of natural justice and passed without granting any opportunity whatsoever to the petitioner to contest the amount of expenses sought to be recovered from it.
The government, on the other hand, argued that since all the amounts sought to be recovered were duly accounted for, no prejudice was caused to the petitioner by passing the impugned order without giving the petitioner any opportunity and that considering the fact that recovery of public funds was intended, no discretion be exercised in favour of the petitioner. The recovery as arrears of land revenue would be undertaken in the manner prescribed.
