Times of India | 1 month ago | 11-08-2022 | 01:06 am
Panaji: All government land that has been encroached on will be reverted to its original position, chief minister Pramod Sawant said on Wednesday. “I will not allow anyone to grab government land,” Sawant said.A special investigation team (SIT) has registered a first information report against an unknown person for allegedly illegally selling 73 properties belonging to the state government in Sanguem taluka. The Goa legislative assembly passed the Registration (Goa Amendment) Bill, 2022, to empower the authorities investigating land grab cases to file a case before the appropriate court or tribunal to determine the veracity of documents.“The investigating authority shall file a case before such a court or tribunal only after ascertaining on exhaustive investigation that the document registered with the registering officer is fraudulent,” the bill states. “The court or tribunal may, upon such enquiry as it deems fit, order cancellation of a document which is found to be fraudulently registered, and it may also order restoration of property in the name of the original owner on cancellation of such document.”The officer must revert the land to its original owner within two days of the court order declaring a document forged, the Bill states. The chief minister had also said that not a single person has approached the SIT to claim ownership of the land being investigated by them. “Anonymous properties, whose owners are in foreign countries or whose owners do not exist, such properties have been sold or illegally grabbed. This will not be permitted. Such properties will belong to the state government,” the chief minister had said.Elaborating, the CM said that in case there are illegally grabbed properties of Goans who have surrendered Indian citizenship and moved abroad, then the government may also think of taking over these properties. Sawant said that the state government will sign a memorandum of understanding with Isha Outreach for the Save Soil Movement started by Sadguru. He said that under this program there will be exchange of expertise, training and empowerment of stakeholders and public awareness. “It will help us in achieving sustainable goals in Goa,” he said. Sawant said that Isha Outreach will share its soil policy with the state.
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