Kamal Ghorui
Panaji: The Bombay high court on Wednesday sought govt’s response over the proposed entry of a new offshore casino into the Mandovi river. While the PIL challenging the allowance of a large casino vessel will be taken up on Monday, govt has been given time till Friday to file its reply.Earlier, AG Devidas Pangam told the HC it was only a “substitute vessel”, while the casino firm said the new vessel is en route to Goa, where it needs to reach before mid-May, as waters will be too rough after that.The PIL by Enough is Enough, a citizen’s initiative, has challenged the entry of the large casino vessel into the Mandovi river on the ground that a 70-capacity vessel cannot be replaced by a 2,000-capacity vessel.A division bench of Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar sought to know if such a large vessel would be able to navigate in the river if a sudden need arose, and if it would block the channel. It observed that replacement by a vessel of the same size would be understandable, but substitution by a much larger one goes beyond replacement. It also asked if there’s a cap on the length of vessels permitted into the Mandovi.In response, Pangam told the court a detailed study was conducted prior to Oct 2022 when the NOC was granted. He said the NOC is only to replace the vessel and is not an order under the Public Gambling Act. The Captain of Ports has only permitted the vessel to come in, he said, and added that registration of the vessel under the Inland Vessels Act is a permissible activity under the Captain of Ports. Pangam further told the court that it was the home department’s domain to grant a gambling licence, and that the two cannot be mixed up.Senior advocate Darius Khambata, representing Delta Pleasures Cruise Co Pvt Ltd, told the HC that permissions were obtained in 2022 while the PIL has suddenly been filed while the vessel is on its way to Goa.He said there’s no 90m length embargo on a vessel and that a boat of up to 120m in length can be permitted. The new vessel, he said, measures 112m and would not be moored within the navigable channel, but at the side, without blocking it.Senior advocate S Muralidhar, appearing for the petitioners, said the vessel is not supposed to be moored in the Mandovi river at all. “The elephant in the room is the Public Gambling Act and that the old vessel was used for gambling and is sought to be replaced by the larger vessel also for gambling,” he told the court.The replacement of a vessel, Muralidhar said, is being permitted without a fresh licence. He asked how such a huge ship could be allowed to travel from Udupi without a licence, and added that the petitioners gathered information under the RTI Act, and found that nothing is available in the public domain. Muralidhar said the ship shouldn’t be permitted to leave Udupi, and if it has left, it must return since it does not have a licence.
