Goa Congress’s social media chief arrested in ‘land grab’ case

In June 2022, the Goa government had constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe cases of illegal land-grab in the state. The government had subsequently appointed a one-man commission under a former high court judge to probe cases of land-grabbing.

During the probe, the SIT had registered 41 FIRs involving at least 90 properties. In several cases, the accused had forged land records and documents in their own names or of their associates, often in collusion with officials in the state’s archives department, and fraudulently executed sale deeds to third parties after illegally acquiring properties.

In the current case, the police said the accused, in connivance with other associates, “dishonestly prepared forged documents” in respect of properties in two survey numbers of village Assagao and “fraudulently produced the forged documents of said landed properties before the concerned authorities and succeeded in transferring the ownership rights over the said properties”.

The accused further sold the properties to “genuine and bonafide purchasers” and “hence deprived the legal heirs from enjoying their legal rights over the properties”.

The FIR in the case names several people, including the two people arrested.

The complainant, Felix Noronha, a resident of Anjuna, alleged in his police complaint that several accused impersonated his father (owner and landlord of property) to forge documents and illegally execute a sale.

The complainant alleged that the accused fabricated the land deed dated December 15, 1950 “with the sole criminal intent and purpose of disposing off properties in the two survey numbers”, then fraudulently executed a sale deed in 2021 and presented it before sub-registrar of Bardez.

In the police complaint, the complainant further said that the land deed relied upon by the accused is fabricated and does not exist in records of the archives department and the sale deeds executed on its basis were null and void.