PERNEM: A Civil Judge Junior Division at Pernem has passed a crucial order which looks to be a protective shield against any attempts made to deprive the tenants of Tiracol their tenancy rights, by the original landlord, the family of the Khalaps or Leading Hotels, the project proponent of the major and controversial Rs 1300 crore golf course and villa project in Tiracol village.
In one of the cases 31/2015, filed by Leading Hotels against a group of tenants for the cancellation of their tenancy rights, on land bought by Leading Hotels, Shilpa S Pandit, Civil Judge, Junior Division at Pernem, has ruled that neither the original landlord Kashinath Khalap (Kashinath Surendra Xete Colopo) nor the company Leading Hotels has any local standi to file such an application under section 7 of the Agricultural Tenancy Act.
It rejected the stand of the original owners that they wanted to give a clear title to the buyers of the land (Leading Hotels) and hence moved an application for the cancellation of tenancy, of six legal heirs of one Xavier D Souza, on the grounds that no agricultural activity was carried out on the said lands.
It is clear that if the original owners had succeeded, in this case, (which would hold true for other such cases) in cancelling the tenancy rights, then the main ground of Tiracol villagers that the entire village land is tenanted and thus has been illegally bought would have weakened considerably.
The Judge gave two reasons for dismissing the application for negative declaration/cancellation of tenancy rights:
1. It was the duty of the original landlords to give a clear title to the buyers. It cannot, after selling the land to Leading Hotels (not going into the legality or merits of the sale) say that it wants a clear title and therefore asking for tenancy rights to be scrapped.
2. Under the Goa Tenancy Act, a landlord means a person from whom the tenant holds land on lease. Since the Khalaps had clearly sold the lands which the heirs of the tenant held on lease, they have ceased to be the landlords.
Secondly the judge ruled that Leading Hotels, a ‘Company’, has no right to file a case for cancellation of tenancy of tenants of Tiracol, in order to clear their way for their golf course and villa project. The Judge maintained that only a landlord can file such cases and a landlord has to be either a person, or fall within the defined categories of “persons”, under the Goa Tenancy Act only. It could include a joint family, a temple, church, mosque and other religious institutions or the comunidade but not a ‘Company’, under the Indian Companies Act.
For the villagers and those fighting for their rights, this ruling will be interpreted as one which settles the fact that neither the original landlords nor Leading Hotels can challenge the right of tenancy of those, whose lands they have bought. And this is the crux of the main writ petition against Leading Hotels by the local villagers.
