An elderly man who says he is the first occupant on the land where the nightclub fire on Birch street near Romeo lane was located has argued that the government had changed the zoning of his property without his consent. The club is situated at the Arpora village of North Goa and was burning in a huge fire on December 6 which took away the lives of 25 individuals, majority of whom were employees and a few tourists.
Claimant Pradeep Ghadi Amonkar alleged that he had concluded an agreement of a sale with Surinder Kumar Khosla in 2004. The deal however was called off within six months when Amonkar was reported not to get the payment as promised. Irrespective of the withdrawal Khosla allegedly proceeded and built a nightclub on the land. It was later acquired by Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra who operated it as Birch by Romeo Lane.
Amonkar said that he has engaged in a long legal struggle of 21 years to get back the land which he claims has been unlawfully occupied. As he was drafting documents to go to the High Court over the December fire tragedy, Amonkar reported finding what he termed as a shocking development, which was that the land had been redesignated as a salt pan into a settlement zone.
He claims that he was not given any notice of this zoning change yet there were litigations on the property. How can it turn a salt pan into a settlement area without the consent of its owner? he asked and this move just seems like it is meant to favor the operators of the nightclubs.
Amonkar asserts that government altered the land classification in silence and circumvented the mandatory procedures as well as being unpublicized. He claimed that this unknown area of change was revealed to him only on Thursday, and this was why he took more legal measures.
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