In the garb of finally “feeling for the people of Tiracol”, the Goa government has done the equivalent of this. Sending a constable with a lathi to look at a town bombed and ravaged beyond recognition. The farce of ordering an inquiry and launching a fact finding mission to look at purchases of tenanted agricultural land by Leading Hotels is too obvious for anyone in Tiracol to miss.
For us at Herald, this joke appears to have gone too far. We have gone to the ground, probed, researched and dug deep to realise that the fraudulent and forcible land purchase made by Leading Hotels was co-scripted by the state. With the St Anthony Tenants and Mundkar’s Association and the Goa Foundation making a water tight case, after painstaking research, to prove that every piece of land claimed by Leading Hotels, was bought in violation of the Agricultural Tenancy Act and the Mundkar Act, the panic stricken government, in bed with Leading Hotels, had to devise a way of delaying a decisive court wrap which would send the entire project out of existence. The dirty tricks department therefore got to work but came up with a very jaded though time tested delaying tool in the form of an inquiry headed by senior state service officer Sandeep Jacques. Mr Jacques, a well meaning officer, may even want to do an honest job but what would that be? An honest job in this case would be to simply reiterate what even the government knows, the absolute and shameful violation of the Tenancy and Mundkar acts. Will the government agree?
The argument of Leading Hotels, that it went by the law of the land and that there was no legal tenancy at the time of purchase can be demolished by the Jacques committee at the first instance. Herald is forced to bring to the table again and quote from its Fly on the Wall column of July 26, that was a rejoinder to a one-sided interview of the CEO of Leading Hotels published in another local newspaper. Herald wrote “All the forms I and XIV of land which Leading Hotels claims to have bought had the names of tenants appearing in them. Many of the tenants have paid the purchase price after the mamlatdar had issued orders. This money was paid to the government treasury since after 1975 the legal institution of “landlords” has been extinguished. The 5th Amendment of the Agricultural Tenancy Act makes them deemed owners of the land. Further the CEO of Leading Hotels, went and got the tenants, many of whom were not in a position to be aware of what they were doing, to sign a power of attorney to him to represent them. This was done with alleged monetary benefits to the tenants. So the CEO made every attempt to get the land devoid of any tenancy encumbrances knowing fully well that the land was tenanted and he himself appeared in court with the power of attorney granted by the tenants, which he used to try and strip them off their tenancies”.
With these undisputable facts, which have been presented and are pending before the High Court, any attempt to confuse matters through an inquiry, would be nothing but an attempt to muddy the leglal waters.
The locals of Triacol are actually in charge of the land through mundkarial and tenancy rights. They have been cultivating crops and cashew and coconut plantations all over the village. Trouble for the villagers began in 2008 when the original owners – the Khalaps – sold the land to Leading Hotels with the sale deed stating there were no tenants or mundkars in the area. This is known to all.
The Government’s pretence is shocking. And what does Chief Minister Parsekar have to say? After blindly backing the project and stating that he can’t stop it since Leading Hotels were investors and the state should appear investor friendly, why the inquiry? He should realise that working against people’s interests is one thing. Politicians have got away with this. But to think that people are such fools that a farcical inquiry to check the antecedents of Tiracol land will make them pro-government converts, needs some imagination.
We have a bit of advice for Mr Jacques. His bosses may not approve but if he is sincere, he should go straight to the office of Goa Foundation and meet Mr Claude Alvares. His documents and petitions on the Tiracol golf course project will take some time to study. If he does so for a month, he will have to neither look nor go any further.
