High court directs casino company to place vessel records on affidavit

Panaji: After observing that the certification of survey of the new 2,000-capacity casino vessel verifying its seaworthiness and fitness to ply was not placed on record, the Bombay high court on Wednesday directed the casino company, Delta Pleasures Cruise Company Pvt Ltd, to place it on record in an affidavit.

The high court also directed the casino company to place on record the vessel’s registration, if any, under the Inland Vessels Act or under the Merchant Shipping Act.

The division bench of Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar, hearing a PIL by Enough is Enough Association and others, challenging the replacement of a 70-capacity vessel with a 2,000-capacity vessel into the Mandovi river, also directed state to respond to the petition on affidavit.

During the hearing on Wednesday, senior counsel S Muralidhar, arguing on behalf of the petitioners, Enough is Enough, told the court that replacement of a 70-seater ship with a 2,000-seater ship is “impermissible in law” and will set a “very bad precedent”.

If this is permitted, all the other casinos will also ask for amendment in their existing licences to bring in larger casinos with 3,000 and 5,000-capacity casino vessels, he told the court. The complete capacity of all the other casino vessels in the Mandovi doesn’t exceed 1,900 passengers, and the new vessel will exceed the carrying capacity in the river, he argued.

The state is permitting replacement of the vessel without even having seen the new vessel, he said, adding that the state is only talking about surveys carried out for mooring without having inspected the vessel, which is at the outer anchorage at Udupi.

He said the state is misleading the court about govt first having to decide on mooring of the vessel and later on a gambling permission for it.

He added that the large vessel will require shorter ferries to take 2,000 passengers to the vessel. Till today, the state doesn’t have expert reports on the size of the vessel but only has mooring reports, he said, adding that this is akin to making preparations for the parking space of a car and talking about the safety of the car later.