Team Herald
MAPUSA: The case of the Tiracol Golf Course project took a new turn on Friday when Advocate Benny Nazareth, representing tenants of Tiracol, grilled Kashinath Khalap, who was disposing as a witness on how he and his family sold the Tiracol land to Leading Hotels when they don’t own it.
On Friday, Nazareth cross examined Khalap and produced documents related to the history of the legal status of the Tiracol land from the year 1813.
Khalap had sold the Tiracol land to Leading Hotels for Rs 33 crore after manipulating documents and fake sale deed. With the help of the same sale deed, Leading Hotels had acquired permission from the concerned departments for the golf course project.
Khalap admitted that according to the documents produced by Nazareth, the Tiracol land is owned by the State and Khalap was paying 828 xerafins to the State government. Khalap also admitted that he neither had any documents to establish ownership of the property, nor had taken any permission from the State government at the time of making the sale deed.
According to the documents produced, Khalap’s ancestors were not entitled “to sell, transfer, gift, sublet or any other manner alienate the property without the permission of the State”.
Also according to the documents produced by Nazareth, there was a dispute between the Khalaps themselves due to which the property was placed in the hands of the court receiver on June 11, 1908 and Khalap had no documents to prove that the property was transferred back to the family from court receiver.
For the last 10 years, the ownership of the land was not mentioned in any documents nor was it produced in any court proceedings.
