High Court quashes NGT orders dismissing plea against Casa Britona hotel over limitation error

The High Court has set aside two orders of the National Green Tribunal, Western Zone Bench, Pune, which had dismissed activist Kashinath Shetye’s appeal against the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) as time-barred in the matter of the Casa Britona hotel.

The High Court held that the Tribunal’s decision was made without hearing the petitioner and rested on a “fallacious” assumption about how the delay was calculated, thereby violating principles of natural justice. It remitted the application for condonation of delay to the NGT for fresh consideration on merits.

On March 7, 2016, Shetye filed a complaint with the GCZMA alleging illegal construction in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) across Survey Nos. 62/2 to 62/6 at Salvador-da-Mundo. The complaint concerned the Casa Britona hotel property, located on the banks of the Mandovi River within 100 metres of the High Tide Line.

Following NGT directions in 2017, the GCZMA on February 11, 2019 ordered respondent Sheila Dhody to demolish extensions on the property and restore the land. After a series of appeals, re-inspections and compliance reports, the GCZMA, at its 289th meeting, accepted the compliance and formally discharged the proceedings against the property by order dated March 7, 2022.

Aggrieved by the GCZMA’s discharge order, Shetye sought to challenge it before the NGT. After obtaining the certified copy of the order on April 18, 2022, he first filed his appeal electronically on May 11, 2022. Following registry defects and re-filings, an interim application seeking condonation of a 42-day delay was registered. After withdrawing the appeal with liberty to cure documentation defects, a fresh appeal was filed and registered.

However, on December 2, 2022, the NGT dismissed both the appeal and the condonation application, holding it was hopelessly time-barred under the NGT Act. Shetye contended he could not join the hearing due to a glitch on the e-filing portal. Although the High Court in February 2026 granted him liberty to seek recall, the Tribunal rejected his miscellaneous application on March 19, 2026.

Before the High Court, counsel for the respondents argued that the writ petition was not maintainable as Shetye had an alternate remedy of a direct appeal to the Supreme Court under the NGT Act. They contended that the delay ranged between 114 and 120 days, beyond the Tribunal’s statutory power to condone.

Rejecting these submissions, the High Court observed that the rule on exhaustion of alternative remedies is one of convenience and discretion, not an absolute bar. It noted that an appeal to the Supreme Court under the NGT Act is confined to substantial questions of law, whereas the present case involved denial of natural justice and errors in computing limitation.

The Court pointed out that Shetye had initially filed the appeal with a 42-day delay—well within the 60-day condonable window under the Act—and had promptly re-filed within days of curing procedural defects.

“Therefore, the assumption that the appeal was delayed by 114 days, beyond the scope of entertaining an appeal under the Act, prima facie appears to be fallacious,” the High Court observed, adding that the initial dismissal was passed without affording the petitioner a hearing.

Partly allowing the writ petition, the High Court set aside both the NGT order of December 2, 2022 and the subsequent recall rejection of March 19, 2026. It remanded the condonation application to the NGT’s Western Zone Bench for fresh consideration on merits and directed all parties to appear before the Tribunal on October 16, 2026.