In a major decision, the State government on Monday hinted at bringing an amendment to the Land Act to take over ‘no man’s properties’ in the State in the wake of rising cases of land grabbings by fraudulent means.
The properties, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant said after chairing a high-level meeting of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the large-scale land grab, wherein the owner is dead or there exists no legal heir will be taken over by the government because these are the properties most susceptible to frauds.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
The government has so far been informed about 92 properties fraudulently transferred by the fraudsters/gangs arrested by the SIT.
“The list of these 92 properties along with survey numbers will be made public shortly so that further sale of such properties is stopped. All the transactions done with regard to these properties will be cancelled and there won’t be any mutations or registrations of these properties in future,” Sawant said.
Sawant said that the list of these 92 properties will be sent to both the District Collectors and those who might have purchased these said properties should approach the respective Collector. According to Sawant, the fraudsters have forged documents of such properties whose original owners were not living in the State.
The Chief Minister ruled out the involvement of any politicians in the land grabbing fraud claiming that the involvement of only lower-level government staff has come to light so far.
He said that the amendment to the Land Act will be introduced in the ensuing Monsoon Session of the Goa Assembly.
The SIT has made four arrests including two government employees from the Archaeology Department. While one is on conditional bail the others are undergoing interrogation by the investigation team. The SIT has also received several fresh complaints besides over two dozen transferred/in the process of the transfer from police stations.
