ASMITA POLJI
asmita@herald-goa.com
Mapusa: Francis Noronha a niz Goenkar, is one of hundreds who has this shocking story to narrate “My grandfather died in 1943 however the sale of deed is signed in January 1956 which is 13 years after his death. Further, the signature is forged and misspelled. How a person can misspell his own name especially if he is signing an important document like a deed of sale. He was an educated person”, Noronha said.
Properties of daughters and sons of the soil and the identity of Goa is at a stake with rising cases of land scams. Noronha is a complainant and this has led to the proverbial can of worms being opened with he worms of corruption, forgery, deceit, and manipulation tumbling out
In the last few months, the cases of land grabs are on the rise, especially in the jurisdiction of Bardez taluka where land which is mostly owned by the Niz Goenkars is being transferred or sold old using fake documents by different groups of people. Most of these cases are reported in Anjuna, Assagao, Siolim, Aldona, and Porvorim areas.
“When I understood that the land is sold after forging the documents, I investigated the matter, through the RTI and lodged a police complaint. But even after giving all the proofs, it took three months for the police to register an offense, and till now there is no progress in the case nor the accused persons have been booked. FIR in the case is registered in January 2022”, Noronha added.
In most of these cases, it is found that sale deeds are found signed either after the person is dead or making a living person dead. In some cases, sale deeds are found signed by persons who are not even born. These cases are not only haunting the owners who have now found out that their names are already deleted from the one and fourteen forms but also the people who are genuine sellers or buyers.
Most of the deeds are inserted in the books of archives during the time of the pandemic, i.e since January 2021 and all these inserted deeds are not registered with archives.
Branca Cassiana Diniz alias Branca Rodrigues is one of the names highlighted in most of the sale deeds. She died on January 30th, 2022 however even after her death, almost five sale deeds are found to be signed by her.
State Registrar Ashutosh Apte said,”I have directed our vigilance department to inquire into the whole matter because this is a serious thing and we have to address it at the earliest. We are investigating from the department side and after the investigation, we will take a call. I don’t want to take any chance with this type of thing because it can go really bad. We have to secure our records and simultaneously investigate the matter,” Apte said.
While Apte’s concerns may be genuine, this has gone on for far too long and is too widespread for any Revenue officer not to know, The manipulation is blatant and happens almost daily.
There are more than 70 to 100 such cases that have come to the notice and out of these cases, almost 50 cases are detected in Anjuna and Assagao areas.
As per sources, till last year, around 128 cases of land scams were registered in the 10 years out of which again, more than half of the cases were reported in Porvorim and Mapusa.
As per sources, these files of fake documents are mostly moved during the pandemic time however the documents are mutated during the last three or four months.
While a common person has to run around for at least a couple of years to get his or her documents mutated after following all the procedures, it is learned that in such cases the mutation process completes within a period of a month or two, sometimes even less giving a clear indication that concern government is hand in gloves. Those who are tracking this charge that officials of the revenue, archives, and even the police are hands in glove with those who are cheating Goans of their land so cruelly and illegally.
It is also learned from the sources that these people are Goans who are impersonating or doing fraud and grabbing the land and in 99 per cent of cases, the same people are behind all the land grabs where they target the properties whose owners are not around for years and the property is left abandoned for years and are not mutated for several years using old sale deeds. Earlier in 2012, these fraudsters use to create fake IDs and other documents.
In one such case, an application for mutation is filed on March 7th, 2022 and by April 11, the mutation was granted. In a period of one month and four days, notices were served, allowed for publication, and granted mutation.
If a common person moves an application for a normal mutation procedure and if there is no NOC then it will take at least a year for the process to complete. However, in this case, there was no NOC, and no addresses, and yet the mutation was granted within 34 days.
Granting of mutation and having the mutation registered in archives indicates that, mamlatdar and someone in the archives department is in connivance, a complaint said.
Look at another case, of a dead person literally rising from his grave and signing a sale deed. The owner died in 1943. However, the sale deed of his property in Nerul is found signed in 1957. It is found that land was sold to two persons, one from Belgaum and one from South Karnataka. In this case, the FIR was registered after the complaint was filed.
In another case, a sale deed is registered where 23 different owners have sold 25 properties through a single sale deed while in another case a landowner’s documents were forged and the land was transferred when that person was supposed to be just five years old.
“This is harming the name of Goa since every second property has fake documents. If the property is bought in 1951 then why is the sale deed are made after 70 years? Goan inheritance is being snatched. This has to be tackled and investigation is required preferably monitored by the court because we don’t know who is into this”, Amit Chopra President of Goa Association of Realtors said.
In most of the cases, the property owners are unaware that their properties have either been sold or the names of property owners have been changed since these culprits target the land of those who are not staying in the state to those who have settled abroad and who have not visited the properties for a long, a police official said.
In many cases, the actual owner of the property gets to know about the property being sold when buyers who are from outside the state start some construction on the land or when renovation work is started on ancestral houses.
As per sources, besides police cases, there are several civil suits pending before the courts in fake property ownership Cases.
(To be continued. Part 2: A deep dive on operation loot of Goan land).
