Hearing on Silly Souls Cafe & Bar

Goa Excise Commissioner Narayan Gad will on Monday 22nd August continue hearing on the complaint filed by Adv. Aires Rodrigues over the illegally obtained liquor licence by ‘Silly Souls Café and Bar’ allegedly being run by the family of Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani at Bhouta Vaddo in Assagao Village.

At the last hearing the Excise Commissioner framed two issues for determination, the first issue being as to whether the excise licence was obtained by Anthony Dgama submitting false, inadequate documents and by misrepresenting facts while the second issue being whether there were procedural irregularities on the part of the Excise officials. The licence holder was directed to file his response to the two issues.

Adv. Aires Rodrigues in his complaint drew the attention of the Excise Commissioner that on 29th June the local Excise office at Mapusa in clear contravention of law renewed the Excise licence in the name of Anthony Dgama despite him having passed away last year on 17th May last year as per the death certificate issued by the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai.

Adv. Rodrigues also pointed out that though the Excise rules allow a Bar licence to be issued only to an existing restaurant, that the Excise department on 18th February 2021 in rank violation of law issued the Excise licence without the required Restaurant licence being in place.

Adv. Rodrigues further pointed out that the licence issued in the name of Anthony Dgama was issued despite the Aadhaar card submitted by him showing that he was a resident of Mumbai and that the Aadhaar card was issued only on 30th December 2020 days before the Excise licence application was filed while the required mandatory Police verification was also not done.

In a connected development the Director of Panchayats Siddhi Halarnkar acting on a complaint filed by Adv. Aires Rodrigues has already directed the Mapusa Block Development Officer Shivprasad Naik to investigate whether the construction of that Restaurant was illegal while the Chief Town Planner Rajesh Naik has directed the Mapusa Senior Town Planner R.K.Pandita to probe into the complaint filed by Adv. Aires Rodrigues about the illegal change of land use and filling of low lying tenanted field done in rank contravention of law to erect the restaurant being run by Smriti Irani’s family.

Meanwhile, Adv. Aires Rodrigues has today publicly appealed to Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai to direct the Goa Government to set up an SIT (Special Investigation Team) headed by a retired High Court Judge to probe the blatant and very serious illegalities in the setting up of ‘Silly Souls Café & Bar’ allegedly being run by Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani’s family at Bhouta Vaddo in Assagao Village.

Alleging that undue political pressure is being exerted on Town & Country Planning department and Panchayat Officials to shield Smriti Irani’s family, Adv. Rodrigues has stated that officials are being coerced not to act against the illegal construction and land filling of a tenanted field by ‘Silly Souls Café & Bar’.

Adv. Rodrigues has further stated that the people of Goa are entitled to know the whole truth in the matter and that those guilty of breaching the law must face the rigors of law for all the gross illegalities at Silly Souls Café & Bar which have allegedly been committed with political patronage enjoyed by BJP leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani.