PANAJI
Excise Commissioner Narayan Gad on Monday took on record the counter-reply filed by lawyer-activist Aires Rodrigues in the matter of the excise licence of the controversial ‘Silly Souls Café and Bar’ in Assagao and fixed it for final arguments on October 13.
"No arguments were heard as the matter was fixed only for filing of the counter-reply to our written submissions by the complainant," lawyer Benny Nazareth who is representing the D'Gama family of the deceased excise licence holder, told the media.
Nazareth said, the complainant (Rodrigues) filed his counter-reply and verbally conveyed to the Commissioner its salient features before the latter fixed the matter for final arguments on October 13.
Rodrigues told the media that in his counter-reply he has argued that the cover taken by the D'Gama family that they are covered under the Portuguese law does not apply since the late Anthony D'Gama was a permanent resident of Mumbai and not Goa.
Rodrigues also said that he has mentioned that the 'excise licence' cannot be an asset which can be part of the inventory proceedings of the D'Gama family but a licence to operate which expires with the death of the licence-holder.
The issue of the excise licence being illegaly renewed despite the holder Anthony D'Gama having expired snowballed into a major controversy after Rodrigues filed the complaint and alleged that the cafe was owned/run by the family of Union Minister Smriti Irani.
Irani has denied any link of her family to the outlet and also sued top Congress leaders -- Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and Netta D'Souza -- for libel before the Delhi High Court, which has in the interim issued a gag order against the latter.
The Silly Souls Café & Bar has remained shut since the controversy surfaced in July but Rodrigues has now come up with more evidence obtained under RTI, including a 10-year lease agreement of the premises at Assagao between D'Gama and a company linked to Smriti's husband Zubin who is a Director.
Nazareth, meanwhile cited provisions of property laws as well as the Registration Act, to claim that the "lease agreement" had never culminated into a lease deed.
"Under the law, there is a distinction between a lease agreement and lease deed. The lease agreement is invalid and cannot be produced as evidence if the document is not registered," Nazareth told the media.
The lease agreement only mentions the intention of the two parties to enter into a lease contract but it never culminated into a lease deed, Nazareth added.
