Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday accepted appeal of Sitabai Shantaram Talawnekar as the tenant of an evacuee’s property in Goa, setting aside the order of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court passed in September 2009 allowing the cashew trees on the land to other party.
The Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and R Subhash Reddy ruled in favour of Sitabai regarding the “Conde-Mayem” property situated in Mayem, Bicholim.
The property originally belonged to one Eurico de Soza Joqem Noroana and after the liberation of Goa it was declared as evacuee property and the same was under the control of the Custodian of Evacuee property.
The appellant claimed to be in possession of the property as tenant of the custodian. It, however, fell in dispute between the predecessors of the appellant and the second respondent, now represented by his legal heirs. In 1984, the respondent moved the court of custodian of evacuee property, Panaji, claiming that he possessed a portion of the cashew garden and the appellant was trying to evict him for not paying the exorbitant rent.
The dispute got complicated after the provisions of the Goa, Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964, were made applicable to the evacuee properties. The respondent moved the Joint Mamlatdar-I of Bicholim to declare him the tenant and got the order in his favour in 2002.
The single judge of the Goa Bench dismissed the writ petition questioning the order in favour of the respondent, leading to Sitabai move the Apex Court.
