KARSTEN MIRANDA
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VELIM: Amidst the outrage over how a blind person was allegedly dragged out of his house that was later demolished, the victim Florencio Gregorio Dias on Monday demanded that the government take immediate action against his assaulters and also sought a probe into the previous complaints that his family had filed about the alleged forged gift deed.
Trouble started for the Dias’ family in 2016 when the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) passed an order, which was against the Dias family and in favour of (late) Colaco and the plaintiffs, one Greta Magdalene Fernandes and Geoffrey Almeida.
In the ‘preliminary decree’ that was issued by the Civil Judge, Junior Division, the children of Carlos including Florencio were ordered to be evicted from the entire property and house. Furthermore, the entire property was ordered to be partitioned,
But this order was passed based on documents that the Dias maintains were totally fraudulent. In those earlier complaints, Florencio’s father, Carlos Peidade Dias had pointed out the Velim-based property had been fraudulently gifted to a Leocardia Colaco by (late) Manuel William Fernandes via a gift deed on May 12, 1983, bearing his name and signature as a witness.
“No person on earth will sign as a witness to any gift deed of the property where he is staying in with his family, to a third party,” said late Carlos in one of those complaints written by him.
Carlos had written to the State Registrar and others asking that this gift deed registered at the Salcete Sub-Registrar office be declared null and void. Until his death, he continued to express dismay that none of the authorities had taken efforts to investigate the alleged forgery.
Carlos had also raised issues about manipulations in the land records as well. He had complained that the Index of Land of Velim village had allegedly been manipulated by Colaco, wherein the name of the original owner Caetano Romeo Fernandes, was put in brackets and in second place below the name of a third party named William Fernandes, who had allegedly signed the gift deed.
Carlos had questioned how William’s name figured in the land records instead of the actual owner, the late Caetano Romeo Fernandes, or his legal heirs.
Incidentally, in the registered agreement of sale, the legal heir of Caetano, (late) Xavier Fernandes had declared that the ‘Vendors’ (himself, his wife, and his sister) and the other legal claimants acknowledge that the purchasers, (Carlos Dias and his son Franco) are in exclusive possession of the property and house.
There’s even a letter from (late) Maria Ida Fernandes, wife of Caetano, where she says she authorised her son Xavier to take decisions about the property on behalf of the family.
That’s not all. Xavier had written to the Salcete Deputy Collector in 2005 asking for action against alleged encroachments on his property.
Xavier had also asked his lawyers to apply to the District Administration, Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department and Land Survey Department for rectification of the survey records Form 1 and XIV, which were’ fudged and fabricated and manipulated by the marauders’ and to also probe the alleged gift deed forged by the ‘marauders’.
It is very important to note that this order was just a preliminary decree and not the final one. Moreover, the division of the property by metes and bounds is supposed to be done by the office of the District Collector and the same has not yet been executed to date.
Florencio added that the house too should have been measured by the Collector’s office but as it is demolished now, it can help those who are eying this land, whose value must have skyrocketed over the years.
