Team Herald
PANJIM: The modus operandi of the land grabbing that shocked the entire State has revealed that the hundreds of square meters of land of innocent Goan landowners couldn't have been executed without the connivance of government officials.
O Heraldo in its sustained reportage on Goa’s land grabbing has always maintained this, with facts. Now the Special Investigative Team (SIT) looking into hundreds of complaints involving several properties across Goa have revealed the chain of corruption that began from the driver to the top official of the department.
After the formation of the SIT in August 2022 the team has received more than 450 complaints involving land grabbing of over 700 properties. Surprisingly, there have been instances of grabbing government land as well. However, of the 450, 44 complaints are being presently heard by the Commission of Inquiry on Land Grabbing.
After an investigation into the cases the Designated Police Officer of SIT, attached to the Crime Branch has in his affidavit revealed the modus operandi of how land grabbing was executed.
The officer has informed the Commission that initially the accused persons identified one Christian family having common Goan names, for example Fernandes, Rodrigues, D'Souza, etc, and fraudulently transferred the said property/properties in their names. Thereafter accused persons managed to register their family succession deed by suppressing the family details before the Sub Registrar Office, and later transferred the property to genuine prospective buyers.
The SIT revealed that the “gang of accused persons” prepared fake/false documents in the Portuguese language, showing deeds of sale in the common Christian names, which are shown as the blood relatives of the accused.
Then, with the help of the Archives Department staff, they managed to insert the said forged deed of sale in the records of the archives department and subsequently obtained the certified copy of the same. They made it look like an authenticated document, certified by the Archives Department and further got them translated into English.
After all this, the accused used to file an application for the mutation before the office of Mamlatdar, by enclosing a copy of the forged sale deed along with the English translated copy for inclusion of their names in Form 1 & XIV.
The next step is to register the first Sale Deed to transfer the said property in the name of a fictitious Buyer. It may be noted here that in many cases, the buyer is also the accused facing charges in the cases.
After registering the Sale deed, the land grabber and fake successor of the original Goan owner moved the file for a mutation to enroll their names as the new owners and then make a genuine sale to the next party, which doesn’t know the background and is presented with “genuine” papers in the name of the “seller” who is one other than the main accused land grabber who has transformed into the legal heir/successor of the original owner
Along with the Archives, the accused gang has been involved in preparing the forged sale deeds and inserting the same in the records of the Sub-Registrar office as well.
The Commission for Inquiry headed by Retd Justice V K Jadhav has been entrusted with the duty to conduct a detailed inquiry into the alleged land grabs cases and fix responsibilities against government servants and other public functionaries involved in the scam.
The commission has to submit a report to the government with recommendations within four months from the date of its first seating.