In a series of major charges against the police and Pollution Control Board for failing to detain gross sound breaches at Sunburn, the Goa authorities sought to ensure that the EDM event (Sunburn) “proceeds unfettered.”
PANJIM: The Bombay High Court’s Goa bench’s decision indicting the Goa government and its administration for inciting sound pollution offences extends beyond the Sunburn EDM festival.
This time, it was organised by a business in Mumbai named M/s Spacebound Web Lab Pvt Ltd, with a “temporary address at Anjuna village” (as per court documents).
Even if the Goa government chooses not to abide by judicial decisions regarding all infractions, particularly environmental ones, they have been requested to do so in order to uphold the rule of law, which they themselves have established. The Goa government is asked to simply rule by not just passing but also carrying out its laws in the order issued on January 3 by the Bench of Justices Mahesh Sonak and Bharat Deshpande.
The decision was made in response to a PIL that Rajesh Sinary filed against the State of Goa and nine other parties, including respondent number 10 Spacebound Web Lab Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, the organisation that obtained the authorizations needed to hold the Sunburn EDM festival in Anjuna in December 2022.
The Anjuna Police and the Goa State Pollution Control Board were allegedly passive witnesses while the Sunburn event organisers flagrantly violated noise pollution laws and norms from December 27 to December 30, according to the PIL. The court noted that music that went beyond what was permitted was played beyond 10 o’clock, and that both the GSPCB and the PI Anjuna were playing a blame game by putting the responsibility on the other while taking no action against the Sunburn organisers.
