PANAJI: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Friday directed the state government to constitute a joint special cell comprising high ranking officials from the police, the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) and district authorities to ensure that the organisers of events like the Sunburn EDM Music Festival “scrupulously comply with the terms and conditions by which such permissions are granted and the provisions of the Noise Pollution Rules.”
Hearing a petition filed by a local citizen Rajesh Sinary, a resident of Anjuna where concerts are frequently held, the high court ruled that the permission granted for the mega event that was held last year -- which was permitted by the state government in less than 24-hours -- was illegal as it was not in accordance with the state’s own action plan to grant such permissions.
“The State Government must immediately constitute a Joint Special Cell comprising high- ranking officials from the police, the GSPCB, and the SDM/Collector. It shall be the responsibility of this Joint Special Cell to ensure that the permissions are granted for such mega events in accordance with the notified action plan, and further, the organisers of such mega events should scrupulously comply with the terms and conditions by which such permissions are granted and the provisions of the Noise Pollution Rules,” the high court bench of Justices M S Sonak and Valmiki Sa Menezes said.
The Court also directed that for the event being held later this month “high-ranking police officials, officers from GSPCB and the Collector/Deputy Collector must remain present at the venue to monitor compliances”.
{{/usCountry}}The Court also directed that for the event being held later this month “high-ranking police officials, officers from GSPCB and the Collector/Deputy Collector must remain present at the venue to monitor compliances”.
{{/usCountry}}“The police officials and the GSPCB officials must coordinate with each other so that there is no recurrence of what happened between the 28th to 30th of December 2022. If the authorities find noise pollution levels are being exceeded or breached, they should immediately halt the event and seize the sound- generating equipment. In addition, the authorities must take all measures to ensure that the noise pollution levels are not breached at any such events,” the court said.
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Sinary, who had filed his petition during the festival in December last year, alleged that despite noise levels breaching the permissible limit, officials at the scene were reluctant to act against the violation -- a fact that was later admitted by the state’s chief secretary before the Court.
The chief secretary, (currently Puneet Kumar Goel) , who was asked to inquire into the lapses at the event last year, reported that while “the GSPCB officials did try to require [the organisers] to bring the sound levels within the permissible limits during the live event [they] could not succeed in their attempts due to a lack of coordination between the police officers and the GSPCB officials.”
The police was reported to have told the GSPCB that “they were busy in monitoring and managing the huge crowd and, therefore, could not control the noise levels.”
“In short, the GSPCB officials and the police officials mutely watched the breach of terms and conditions subject to which permissions were granted to R-10, the breach of Noise Pollution Rules and the breach of directions issued by this Court but felt helpless to act. The entire breach was to blame one another but somehow see that R- 10 continues with its festival by breaching the Noise Pollution Rules with impunity,” the high court observed.
In a hearing in April this year, the chief secretary had admitted before the Court that last year, the permissions were granted to the Sunburn organisers for their event, within 24-hours of the application being submitted in gross violation of the rules.