PORVORIM: The State Government on Thursday announced a judicial inquiry into the Goa State Co-Operative Bank ‘multi-crore property auction scam’ for last 14 years, after both opposition and ruling benches charged massive corruption in the State Apex Bank. The Registrar of the Co-operative societies and the Chairman of the Bank were tagged as prime culprits in the entire scam by the opponents.
For the very first time during the ongoing monsoon session of the State Legislative Assembly both ruling and opposition legislators were seen united in exposing the scam in the Co-operative Bank, which runs into crores of rupees. Refusing to accept government’s initial assurance to conduct inquiry through the Registrar of the Co-operative societies, the members of the House unanimously demanded an inquiry through judicial panel.
With Housing witnessing ruckus and the MLAs continuing to mount pressure on the government for inquiry, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar finally assured the State Legislative Assembly to order a judicial inquiry into the scam.
“The magnitude of the corruption in this plot auction is huge. We will have to conduct a detail inquiry exposing all those involved and initiating action against the culprits. A judicial inquiry into this is must,” Parsekar said appealing the members not to malign the Apex Bank as the State needs to protect the institution and not the culprits.
“We are not here to protect anybody. The guilty will be punished” he commented.
A clubbed question raised by Independent MLA Vijai Sardesai and Congress MLA Digambar Kamat brought to the notice of the House that the bank authorities and the registrar have no power to conduct the auction of the properties or plots as per Central government guidelines. “The entire process adopted for conducting the auction is illegal,” Sardesai said.
The Fatorda MLA pointed out that in 1995 the consultant SN Bhobe had conducted an evaluation of a property in Bainguinim and had estimated price as Rs 8.19 crores. However, ten years down the line in 2016, the same property was auctioned by the bank to a meagre amount of Rs 1.36 crores, he said.
“This is just one example. The Registrar and Chairman are the real culprits. They in collusion are conducting all such illegalities,” he exposed.
Not just Kamat, but MLAs from ruling panel including Subhash Phal Dessai, Siddharth Kunkolienkar, Dr Pramod Sawant and Nilesh Cabral also came in support of Sardesai and demanded that the scam be investigated.
Earlier, trying to defend the Registrar, Co-Operation Minister Mahadev Naik said that the State Registrar is exercising the powers conferred on him by the Central Government “Chairman/Managing Director and the Recovery Officers are equally responsible and accountable for any omission and commission while conducting auction, accepting bid and executing sale deed,” he said.
