Regularisation as governance
The Government of Goa has, in its latest policy announcement, chosen to convert what was once illegal into a legally recognised reality. Through the recent amendments culminating into the Goa Land Revenue Code (Amendment) Bill, 2025 and the Goa Regularisation of Unauthorized Construction (Amendment) Bill, 2025, a framework has been crafted to provide ownership rights to those who have constructed structures on government land, Communidade property, and other categories of occupied land prior to specified cut-off dates.
By inviting applications for regularisation of such constructions, the State has blurred the line between lawful ownership and unlawful encroachment.
Legitimising encroachment
Prominent advertisements in local dailies, paid for from the State exchequer, now call upon individuals to apply for legal recognition of structures that were never sanctioned under law. This raises a question of principle: should public funds, contributed by law-abiding citizens, be used to empower those who have openly defied planning norms, land tenure laws, and the fiduciary duties owed to the Communidades?
These amendments invert the doctrine by retroactively bestowing rights on those who entered and occupied land without title, at the expense of those who respected the law.
Communidade land and collective rights
Particularly striking is the decision to extend regularisation to homes erected on Communidade land. To permit regularisation of encroachments on such land strikes at the root of the very institution of the Communidade, undermining collective ownership and opening the door to fragmentation by private occupiers.
The amendments require consent of the concerned Communidade but the asymmetry of power between the State and village bodies renders this safeguard fragile. In practice, political patronage and administrative pressure could lead to wholesale dilution of Communidade rights, eroding a unique institution that predates the Indian Constitution.
Mundkars, sub-tenants and the Bhatcar’s dilemma
The consequences of the new amendments must also be assessed in light of the Mundkars (Protection from Eviction) Act, 1975, which was enacted to provide security of tenure to Mundkars occupying dwelling houses on the land of their Bhatcars. The Act recognised the historical reality of dependency in agrarian Goa, protecting Mundkars from arbitrary eviction but maintaining the overarching proprietary rights of the Bhatcar.
By contrast, the 2025 amendments open a much broader pathway. They allow unauthorised occupants to apply for regularisation without the same checks and balances. This raises an uncomfortable prospect: sub-tenants of Mundkars, who may have constructed or encroached upon portions of the Bhatcar’s land without formal recognition, could now invoke these schemes as an alternative route to legalisation. Whereas the Mundkars Act sought to balance equity with landlord rights, the current policy bypasses that balance by providing blanket amnesty for encroachment prior to the cut-off date of 28 February 2014.
In effect, the distinction between a protected mundkar and an unauthorised encroacher risks collapse. Bhatcars who once had recourse to statutory limits under the Mundkars Act may now find themselves facing claims by sub-tenants legitimised through the new regularisation regime. The protection of tenancy rights is thus being repurposed into an instrument for outright ownership, expanding far beyond the careful framework envisioned in 1975.
This development also carries political undertones. While the Mundkars Act was a product of grassroots agrarian struggle, today’s amendments appear driven more by the logic of electoral accommodation.
Fiscal and ethical implications
The legalisation of unauthorised homes also has fiscal implications. The cost of infrastructure, compensation, and administrative processing of such regularisations will ultimately be borne by the taxpayer. Lawful owners who purchased plots, obtained permissions, and paid statutory levies are now placed at par with encroachers who bypassed every regulatory hurdle. The incentive created is perverse: why comply with zoning, Coastal Regulation Zone restrictions, or planning approvals, when one can simply await a legislative amnesty?
The jurisprudential concern is deeper. Law, as an institution, is intended to deter unlawful behaviour by imposing consequences. By contrast, these amendments reward illegality with ownership rights. This is not the rule of law, but the rule by waiver.
Democratic accountability
The announcement also brings into question democratic accountability. The Goa Legislative Assembly passed these amendments during its previous session, but the larger debate on public policy priorities was absent. What was projected as “historic reforms” effectively translates into state-sponsored regularisation of violations. The government’s campaign to publicise the scheme, couched in the language of empowerment, masks the deeper erosion of land governance in Goa.
Future generations will bear the brunt of a planning framework weakened by retrospective amnesties. Coastal villages, heritage precincts, and ecologically fragile zones may see their protections reduced to mere words, as encroachments gain permanence through statute rather than being rectified by enforcement.
Conclusion: A precedent of erosion
The laws of Goa now stand at a turning point. By incorporating amendments that validate unauthorised constructions, the State risks sending an unmistakable message: illegality, if widespread and politically expedient, will ultimately be rewarded. While the Mhaje Ghar Yojana and allied reforms are presented as welfare measures, their deeper consequence is to diminish respect for legal processes, distort communal land institutions, and burden taxpayers with the cost of regularising illegality.
The legitimacy of governance lies not in accommodating every breach of law but in upholding the principle that law exists to protect the lawful, not to elevate the unlawful. By spending public money to advertise pathways for regularisation, the State has chosen to champion the cause of the outlaws setting a precedent that may be difficult to undo in the years to come.
