PANAJI: The Justice V K Jadhav (retd) headed one-man commission on Wednesday submitted its report on the multi-crore land grabbing cases to the State government. The report, submitted in a “record time of ten months”, has named “masterminds” and their “co-accused” involved in the scam while recommending measures to the government to prevent scams of similar nature in future.
The one-man panel, constituted on August 30, 2022 under the Commission of Inquiries Act, 1952, was supposed to submit its report to the government with recommendations within four months from the date of its first seating. The first seating of the Commission took place in January, 2023. The Commission was dealing with 44 FIRs registered by the Special Investigating Team (SIT) involving 93 land parcels and properties measuring 1.5 lakh square metres across Goa. Total 23 people, including government servants, were arrested in the matter.
Speaking to media persons post submitting the report to the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Justice Jadhav said that the exercise of filing the report has been completed in a “record time of ten months.” “I have submitted the report. Now the ball is in the CM’s court,” he said while refusing to divulge details. “Nothing can be disclosed from the report, directly or indirectly,” the Commissioner added.
Commission set up to handle land grabbing cases
The Commission was constituted to inquire and fix the responsibility in all the cases of land grabbing involving private land and any other land in the State, and to find out the involvement of government officers and any other public functionaries and private individuals in such land grabbing. Later, speaking to the media, the Chief Minister informed that the reports have been forwarded to the State chief secretary and the Advocate General for examination and implementation of the recommendation. He lauded the one-man commission of inquiry for completing the probe and submitting the report in the record time of ten months.
“The recommendations made in the report would be used to save large tracts of land in the future, which otherwise would have been sold by those seven scam masters. The commission has named all those who were involved.
Strict action will be taken against offenders
Inquiry will be initiated and action will be taken against each and every one including the government servants, if any. They would be suspended,” Sawant said, adding ‘more cases and FIRs will be filed based on the report now’.The Chief Minister explained that over the past 20-25 years, land belonging to the Goans, government land, and no man’s land were sold fraudulently by creating fake records.
“This would have been a never ending scam, if the government had not intervened and acted upon. If the scam was not identified and stopped, it would have continued and lakhs of sq mtr more land would have been sold by those seven scam masters,” he asserted.Sawant claimed that “stopping the land grabbing scam is a ‘great achievement’ in my tenure as Chief Minister”.
