MAPUSA: Judicial Magistrate First Class Mapusa, Dvijple V Patkar directed the Mapusa Police Inspector to register case against Raju Gawas, former Chief Officer of Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) with regards to illegal transfer of house tax.
The applicant Milton Camilo Rodriguez had filed case against the former chief officer Raju Gawas (in charge between January 2015 to March 2015), the taxation department subordinate staff and one Monica Rodrigues for illegally transferring house tax from his name to that of Monica thereby committing crime under Sections 166, 167, 417, 420, 466, 467 and 468 r/w Section 34 of IPC.
Applicant alleged that he complained to the police on May 14, 2017 and the Mapusa Police Inspector failed to register the case. The applicant later once again complained to the police on May 23, 2017 but this time too, the PI failed to register the case.
The applicant later made application to Mapusa Police Inspector, the SP (North) and the PP. Objecting to the applicant plea, Advocate Noronha appearing on behalf of the Mapusa PI stated that the inquiry into the complaint was conducted and it revealed that proceedings are going on before the Chief Officer of Mapusa Municipal Council. The authority will decide the matter on merits about the allotment of the house number and the transfer of the same.
Adv Noronha stated that from the inquiry conducted so far by the Mapusa police, it has been revealed that the process of transferring of the house tax from the name of the Milton Rodrigues to that of Monica Rodrigues is on a technical ground and as such no offence is made out from the inquiry conducted so far.
Raju Gawas stated that during the course of the inquiry it was learnt that the process of obtaining the house tax transferred in the name of Milton was illegal and hence the same was transferred in the name of Monica. The inquiry revealed that the subject matter of the present complaint is over transfer of house tax from the name of Milton Rodrigues to Monica Rodrigues, which is carried out on verification of the document by the competent authority i.e. the MMC and that the inquiry conducted so far revealed that no cognizable offence is committed.
On behalf of the applicant, Adv V Porob said, “It is compulsory for the officer in-charge of a police station to register FIR if the complaint discloses the commission of cognizable offence and if a person has a grievance that the police station is not registering his FIR, he can approach the SP through an application in writing.
