It looks like an effort to save Anant Shet. The BJP MLA from Mayem is in a bit of a spot with the voters and the party came up with a plan, a half-baked one. It decided to give Mayem evacuee property occupiers sanads. But since the matter is still pending before the High Court, the government dubbed it as provisional sanads, which it claims is as good as permanent, whatever that means. The other side of the story is that not everyone got these provisional sanads. Of the 1,141 applications for occupancy rights, 1,123 have been sent to the mamlatdar for 202 to the Collector for inquiries. This means only 62 or 5% of the total applicants got sanads and the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza are terming it as a legal achievement. Parrikar stated that the government has the ability to draft laws that would stand the test of judicial scrutiny. If that was the case why were 95 per cent of the applications sent down the administrative machinery for scrutiny? The Mayem evacuee property issue has challenged every government with none able to come up with a legal solution and it would appear that the Portuguese drafted laws that stood the test of time.
