On the opening day of the monsoon session on Monday, the Goa legislative assembly was disrupted as Opposition members protested in the well of the House. Their demonstration was in response to Speaker’s decision to disallow three questions related to land conversion by the Town and Country Planning Department. The Speaker cited the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of the Goa legislative assembly as the basis for this decision.
“We demand to know why the question was denied. He said the Speaker denied the question quoting Rules 37(3) (Offensive or defamatory assembly questions), 37(8) (questions relating to sub-judice matters), 37(11) (denying any admissibility based on trivial or meaningless questions) and 37(20), even though, according to him, nothing in the question violated the cited rules.
“The question was simply seeking the definition of No Developable Area (NDA), the number of cases approved and reasons and details, whether lands could be declared as NDA without first amending the Act, whether these declarations were challenged in court and the parameters and standard operating procedures for declaring lands as non-developable area,” Alemão said. The people of Goa deserve to know, our rights as MLAs are being violated,” Alemão said. Speaker Ganesh Gaonkar said he disallowed the questions for multiple violations including the fact that the issue of land conversion is currently being litigated before the Bombay High Court at Goa.
The questions raised jointly by six opposition members sought details about lands in Goa being arbitrarily moved into a ‘non-developable area’—a type of zone that is yet to be defined under the Town and Country Panning (TCP) Act.
Opposition leader Yuri Alemão of Congress, who was among the legislators later marshalled out, said the Speaker disallowed three questions. They were denied using obscure provisions of the Rules, he said.
