Civic body has been asked to keep the money in a separate bank account till further orders.
The Gujarat high court on Monday restrained the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) from utilising the fund generated by the entry fee charged for the Kankaria lakefront.
According to the high court order, the AMC now has to open a separate bank account for the fund and deposit into it all the money collected as entry fee for the lakefront. The civic body has also been asked not to use the fund without the prior permission of the Gujarat high court.
The high court bench headed by chief justice SJ Mukhopadhyaya issued this order during the hearing of a PIL petition filed by the Kankaria Mukti Abhiyan, a body led by some distinguished residents of the city.
The Kankaria Mukti Abhiyan had filed the petition against the high entry fee charged from the ordinary members of the public. The court directed the AMC not to utilise the fund until it issued further orders in the matter, and posted the final hearing of the PIL to January 18.
The bench asked the civic body to furnish the details of the amendment made in the Bombay Provincial Municipal Act (BPMC) by the Gujarat government to allow for collection of the entry fee.
It also directed that documents relating to the ‘no objection certificate’ (NOC) issued by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to the AMC be submitted before it. The documents related to the amendments and the AMC’s communications with the ASI will also be provided to the lawyers of the Kankaria Mukti Abhiyan.
When asked for his comments on the court order, the chairman of the AMC’s standing committee, Asit Vora, said, “We will keep the daily income from the entry fee in a separate bank account from Tuesday.”
The deputy municipal commissioner for south zone, MS Patel, said that the daily income from the entry fee came to around Rs1 lakh per day. “Around 10,000 people visit Kankaria every day,” he said. “Hence, the income from the entry fee touches around Rs1 lakh a day. We will abide by the court order and keep this income in a separate account.”
The civic body currently collects Rs10 per person as entry fee for the Kankaria lakefront. If the income from the zoo and the Bal Vatika are included, the Kankaria Lake premises has earned Rs 7 crore for the AMC in the last one year.
Anand Yagnik and Shalin Mehta, counsels for the petitioner, argued that the civic body had been claiming that it had taken an NOC to further develop this 500-year-old heritage structure. The Kankaria Lake is included in the heritage list of the ASI.
The petitioner’s counsels claimed that the civic body had sought permission only to reconstruct the residential complex in the area. The AMC, on the other hand, had claimed that it had an NOC for the development of the whole Kankaria lakefront.
Therefore, clarity was needed on the issue, the lawyers said.
The counsels further said that the state government had made amendments in section 458 of the BPMC Act to facilitate collection of entry fee for the Kankaria Lake. The government had consulted only the Municipal Commissioner and not the affected people, the lawyers said.
The government body is obliged to provide management and maintenance for the lakefront and it can’t charge high fees from the general public. Earlier, the section in the BPMC Act allowed for collection of fees only for certain occasions.
The bench then asked the advocate-general, Kamal Trivedi, and the petitioner’s counsels, when could fees be charged and when they could not be charged. Then Trivedi agreed to provide the documents demanded by the counsels.
(With inputs from Niyati Rana)
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