A Division bench of the Bombay High Court at Goa comprising Justice R.S. Dalvi and Justice F.M. Reis on Tuesday quashed and set aside an order which had regularised a 599 sq mt prime land of Serula Communidade (village land commune) at Porvorim in north Goa, which was encroached by Goa Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar who is also a local BJP MLA from Saleigao Assembly constituency.
Allowing a Public Interest Litigation petition filed by activist lawyer Aires Rodrigues, the High Court on Tuesday, in its order, ruled that the order passed by the then President of the Administrative Tribunal Zaiwant Porobo on September 27, 2012 regularising the land in favour of Mr. Parulekar was bad in law and could not stand judicial scrutiny.
The petitioner had alleged blatant misuse and abuse of power by Mr. Parulekar, in connivance with his Under Secretary Irene Sequeira who was also the Administrator of Communidade of North Zone, and Peter Martins, Attorney of the Communidade of Serula who conspired to allow on a platter, valuable Communidade land at a throw away price to Mr. Parulekar, in the guise of regularising his encroachment.
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The petitioner had pointed out that as per clause 1 of Article 380 of the Code of Communidade that governs these age-old village land communes, regularisation was possible only in cases of land which is valued at less than 1800 escudos or Rs. 300. The petition has said that the market value of the area encroached was more than Rs. one crore whereas it was given away for a mere Rs. 3, 41,320.
Nationalist Congress Party chief spokesperson Trajano D' Mello, who had also been persistently exposing this and other land encroachment cases on Communidade lands by people in or close to power, demanded that Mr. Parulekar immediately step down after this court verdict or Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar must sack him to uphold his claim of "zero tolerance to corruption."