Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar may like to think of himself as a magician. In 18 years, the man who came from humble beginnings as an apple merchant used just 20 square metres of ‘space’ he received to make a kiosk on the land of the communidade of Serula is now the “owner” of 599 square metres of land. This brand of magic is a cruel joke on the institution of communidades, a joke not just played by Parulekar himself but functionaries within the communidade system and the government, which is not an innocent bystander.
The violation, if committed by a common man would have attracted criticism, penalties and strong legal action. Parulekar has survived all that till now. This is a story of how he has encroached and grabbed communidade land which he claims has been “regularized”, purely for commercial purposes. According to him he first took the plot on lease in the survey number 376/6 of Soccoro village in the year 1990. But as per the records of the village panchayat, the first NOC (No Objection Certificate) to install a shade of 20 sq mtrs was given only in May 1997.
And from the 20 sq mtrs of shade (Kiosk), the area leased out to Dilip Parulekar, he now has grabbed 599 sq mtrs of land within 15 years, in survey number 376/6 of the Socorro panchayat. Parulekar’s defence is that portions of the land, under survey numbers 376/6 and 379 (other lands encroached and detailed in the next paragraph) have been “regularized”, but as we have detailed below, this regularization has been challenged in the Bombay High Court and is prima facie bad in law (the Code of communidades). Regularization of communidade property can be done only in the case of people who are otherwise homeless and need the land for residential purposes. Parulekar on the other hand not only owns a big hardware shop but other commercial establishments in these plots.
But this is just the case of one survey number. Records show that he and his brother Pramod Parulekar, in all likelihood, did the same in survey numbers 379, 379/1, 380 and 389/1, in the same panchayat area.
All these land grab cases are being probed by the state’s crime branch under the watchful monitoring of a special Court in Panjim which stepped in after Social Activist, Aires Rodrigues, moved it since the state police was suppressing the investigations against its senior minister.
Simultaneously, gaonkars of the Serula Communidade have also separately filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging the said allotments of land to Parulekar through the process of regularisation, as per the amended article of the code of communidades – article 372- A. This allowed homeless people who have encroached on communidade land for residential purposes to apply for regularization of the said plots. In the year 2001, Dilip Parulekar had applied under article 372-A for the regularization of unauthorized encroached area of 332 sq mtrs as under 165 square meters in Survey number 376/6 and 167 square meters under survey number 379.
The article 372-A clearly states and the application form also makes it very clear that the application is only to regularize unauthorized occupation/wrongful possession/encroachment on Communidade land, for residential purpose which clearly was not Parulekar’s purpose.
More importantly, the code of communidade doesn’t allow the property owned by Communidades to be given for commercial purposes, but using his political influence, the Tourism Minister has been blatantly using these plots or commercial purposes.
THE FINAL BLOW (to traditional communidade land)
In the year 2004, the minister acquired (grabbed) more property and finally in the year 2014 a total of 599 sq mtrs of the land was “sold” to Dilip Parulekar in the survey number of 376/6.
Thus the journey which began in the year 1997 when only 20 sq mtrs of areas was leased to Parulekar, evident in the NOC, to erect a kiosk, has ended at a fraudulent destination- that of misuse of power to keep grabbing land in the name of regularisation and illegal sale- to give Parulekar a benefit of 599 square metres of land, which he is exploiting commercially.
But he did not stop at that. It has been revealed that Parulekar has even taken compensation in exchange of his kiosk on the opposite side in the survey number 379/1 in view of road widening. Which means, and this will shock you, he has been compensated for the loss of his kiosk due to road widening, with additional shops when the additional plots of land he has clearly encroached were illegally regularised.
The 20 sq mtrs of land in 1990 has been encroached and illegally purchased without following the proper procedure of the Code of Communidades. The (check which court)Court in its order of February 2014, following the writ petition filed by Aires Rodrigues, directed government and the Serula communidade to proceed with the process of regularization of the encroached in accordance with law. The law of regularisation meant give the land on lease and give the NOC so that any person who may have encroached on land for residential purposes, and is otherwise homeless, may get other facilities like electricity and water.
Secondly, none of the plots under investigation was sold to him before 2014, as it was always on lease. The Communidade cannot sell the land as per code. But in 2014, when he was the Tourism Minister, the MLA of Saligao and was directly influencing decisions for which he was the beneficiary, this land was “sold” to him.
But it may be an endgame soon. The crime branch investigating the Serula land grab has informed the court that it has completed investigations in the case and will be filing a charge sheet soon, in which the Tourism Minister is the main accused. Will this saga of blatant misuse of power finally end? We will have to wait and see.
