PORVORIM, May 8 -- AUGUSTO RODRIGUES

The fishing community across Goa celebrated on Thursday as the High Court of Bombay at Goa ordered a complete ban on LED fishing, bull trawling and pair trawling, directing the Directorate of Fisheries to enforce this under the Marine Act.

The order, which came as a 63 page judgment on Writ Petition No 403 of 2022 and was authored by Justice Valmiki Menezes, was a major victory for traditional and smaller fishermen, who have claimed for a long time that they were not being given adequate protection by the Department of Fisheries (DoF).

Taking cognizance of this, the judgment castigated the DoF for the manner in which it tried to mislead the Court during the hearings. The court has set a timeline for...