PANJIM: In a major development, the Goa State Legislative Assembly’s select committee has decided to recommend that the Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceeding Bill, 2012, earlier introduced in 2008, be tabled and passed in its original format. As reported by Herald last week, the Bill will replace the old Portuguese Civil Code on the subject of succession, inventory and notarial law, with the State Laws, to meet the present day requirements.
The select committee headed by Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Revenue Francis D’Souza met on Saturday and unanimously decided to present the bill in its original format and recommend that the House pass it in the Budget session. The meeting was attended by the Draft Committee of the Bill represented by some senior former and present judges and lawyers.
“The objections and suggestions received to the Bills were the same that we got in 2008 and were incorporated while drafting the 2012 bill. Since there were no fresh public inputs, the select committee decided to clear the bill without any changes,” D’Souza told Herald after the meeting. Committee members, including Pratapsingh Rane, attended the meeting.
The Bill intends to consolidate various provisions of law relating to succession and inventory proceedings in property matters, and notaries into one ‘comprehensive, rational and integrated legislation to facilitate their application and implementation by the bench, the bar and litigants’.
The bill had been first introduced on January 14, 2005, and was later referred to the select committee, but after dissolution of the House, the bill lapsed. The then Digambar Kamat government in 2008 re-tabled the Bill but it was again referred to the Select Committee. As the Bill failed to get passed before the Assembly’s term ended, it lapsed.
In August 2012, the then Manohar Parrikar-led government again introduced the Bill but it again got referred to the Select Committee.
The minister said that the provisions of the law relating to succession, notaries and inventory, are in the Portuguese language and hence the courts, the members of the Bar and litigants face practical difficulties which lead to delay in disposing cases.
The Bill also takes a more humane and fair outlook on illegitimacy, on mentally challenged persons, and on those who were earlier denied property rights because of social stigma, for no fault of theirs.
