Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reopened the 25-year old Quepem property dispute of Narayan V Gaonkar and his eight relatives in connnection with the petition by the Goa government to claim that the property belonged to its forest department.
The Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Navin Sinha allowed the application of the Goa government, saying there were sufficient grounds to take additional documents filed by it and asked Gaonkar’s counsel to reply to the application and the documents.
It also summoned the records from the Civil Judge Senior Division, Quepem, listing further hearing on January 28. The trial court had admitted the case in 1995 and pronounced the judgment in 2001 which was upheld by the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court in June 2011, dismissing the government’s claim.
The dispute is over 23,04,500 square metres on which the trial court declared the Gaonkars as the owner of the property known as “Conda Moll” or “Bindangal” or “Bindan Moll” or “Caria Moll”, situated in the village of Sulcorna, Quepem, Goa, inscribed in the Land Revenue office.
Gaonkars had claimed to possess the property for the last several years, directly or through their predecessors and wanted the name of the forest department as occupants in the survey records struck off. The state government in a counter before the trial court wanted the names of Gaonkars deleted from the records.
The trial court upheld Gaonkars’ claim, noting that the Matriz document shows it recorded in the names of Essu Gauncar, Horry Gauncar, Mocunda Gauncar and Gonoba Gaunkar and Siva Gauncar. It rejected the government’s claim over the land, noting that the range forest officer in his deposition was not aware if the property belonged to the government or existing trees were planted by his department.
