The Goa Foundation, the petitioner before the High Court, has welcomed the Inquiry Committee report on the controversial Tiracol golf course project, stating that the Inquiry has been ‘impartial ‘.” The report comes as a welcome surprise. It appeared to be an impartial inquiry,” GF director Dr Claude Alvares said.Alvares pointed out that both GF and Tiracol Tenants Association (TTA) had not collaborated with the Inquiry and had informed that it was not interested in establishing individual tenancy claims but the use of tenanted land for use of golf course would be in contravention of the Goa Land Use Act 1991. “On the other hand, the Inquiry Committee heard the Leading Hotels fully, however, rejected their arguments,” he said. Alvares said that though the TTA did not accompany the committee members on the field survey to determine that the land was still used for agriculture, the committee came to the conclusion that the proposed project lands were cultivated.
Alvares, who has backed the writ petition of the tenants and mundkars against Leading Hotels and filed interventions, told Herald “What is indeed unusual is the Government’s role in all this. When the report went against the Leading Hotels, the government refused to bring the report on record. This is highly unusual. It could only mean that the government thought, when it appointed the committee, that its report would go in favour of Leading Hotels and the government. However, the officer turned out to be an outright person, something very unusual to find nowadays in the Goa bureaucracy.”
