PANAJI
Speaking to The Goan, Adv Rohit Bras de Sa said that the court found no merit in the argument forwarded by the petitioner shopkeepers that they were victims in the entire saga. “To file a review petition one needs to specify a ground, a patent error on record which requires intervention of the court through a review petition. The court rejected their grounds and reconfirmed its order,” he said. In an order passed on May 5, this year on the basis of two petitions one filed by Trajano D Mello a former NCP and currently Congress politician and the second jointly filed by Gabriel D Souza, a daily wage earner and Yeshwant Shirodkar, a driver against the land grab by the Goa Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar, the court had ruled in favour of the petitioners. “The Chief Secretary through the Collector and the North Goa Planning and Development Authority and the Village Panchayat of Socorro, are directed to immediately take action to stop the unauthorised occupation of the subject premises by Dilip Parulekar and others in accordance with law and file compliance report,” the court had said. “The Comunidade of Serula and the Administrator of Comunidades are directed to take action in accordance with law against Dilip Parulekar and others to restore the subject property,” the order reads. “The High Court dismissed the petition and said that no clarification was required,” Adv de Sa said. “I had argued before the court that the shopkeepers were only front for the machinations of Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar and his brother,” he said. “They have been trying to show that they are the victims. But the real victims are the government officials who are being given punishment postings including one deputy collector who refused a conversion of the land was was posted far off,” he added. Trajano and the other petitioners had argued that Dilip Parulekar and his brother in violation of various provisions of the Code of Comunidades usurped the land belonging to the Comunidade of Serula by initially putting up a shed under the umbrella of a resolution passed by the Comunidade, permitting an area of 9 X 11 Sq. mtrs in survey no. 376/6 for an annual rent of ` 600 and another area of 112 sq mts for an annual rent of ` 75 as per the Special General Body Meeting in 2004 but had further encroached in an area of 599 sq mtrs. In their defence the Parulekar brothers argued that the land still belongs to the Comunidade, and the structures on it belong to the private respondents who are beneficiaries pursuant to the decision taken in their favour by the Comunidade. Further, without there being any guidelines or policy in the matter of regularisation of any encroachment in the comunidade land, the government entertained an application for regularisation in a clear case of State authorities favouring Parulekar since he occupies high office.
