PEOPLE HAIL SUPREME COURT ORDER by Freddy Agnelo Fernandes

I was ecstatic, surprised and dismayed at the same time today as I went through the news of this historic judgment. There is joy in most quarters and people have hailed the Supreme Court Order declaring transfer of village community land for private and commercial use as illegal. I say hurray, to the Supreme Court.

I am ecstatic because it’s is indeed the right judgment and everybody should be glad that the errant rogues will be checkmated by this order, who have been tying themselves in knots in selling these community lands for personal gains with no community interests at heart. With this judgment we can protect whatever Community land that’s left unsold.

The Supreme Court had clearly stated that these lands were used for community welfare and purposes since time immemorial and as such, should be used only for community welfare and purposes and cannot be sold for private or commercial usage. After a lot of Comunidade land has been sold for personal gains by our very own political and bureaucratic Babus, in concurrence with the equally corrupt Panchayat body members, for once we can surely heave a sigh of relief.

I was also little surprised too with this judgment, probably the pessimism that’s built up in me because of the number of scams that we have witnessed explode in midair, emitting and underlining the “glitterati” involved in these charades. Top politicians, top defense officials, top security personnel, top Gurus, top bureaucratic babus and even top members of the Judiciary. With all the top notch “glitterati” of the country involved in the top notch scams in the land, how can one expect a ruling that’s an oxymoron in stature and anti climax in time ?

Most of us who are aware of all these scams are utterly disgusted with all those involved, money is wasted and that too from the public coffers. We slog our buts off, for a better quality of life for us and our families, and then we pay our taxes and at our cost and at our expense the top notch people feather their own nests. Is this fair ?

In a way I was a bit dismayed at the ruling of the Supreme Court. Since 1961 we have our own Comunidade administrators or the so called protectors of Comunidades, but have they really protected those lands, in most cases the answer is no. If one is lucky some comunidade land is only on paper but physically it’s been sold and the money distributed within the elite group. In most cases, most of the Comunidade land just does not exist anymore. The worst thing is, most of the records in the offices of the Comunidade bodies have been forged or conveniently and conspicuously missing. For Goans this ruling will do too little and has come too late but none the less, late better than never.

Here I will give an example of a very small village of Khola in Canacona, it was once a lush green cover, now all bald mountains and the Khola community or the Comunidade had once huge land assets, it was a land rich Comunidade of Khola, today Comunidade land ceases to exist, the very people in whose hands these Comunidade lands were given for safe keeping have sold them to the highest bidder or made them their own. The Comunidade land records have vanished into thin air.

Thanks to the perseverance of one man, Floriano Fernandes a native, the Cabo-de-Rama plateau has been saved. This plateau was fraudulently sold to a five star consortium by the very protectors of the Khola Comunidade in concurrence with the than MLA for crores of rupees. The land records just disappeared into thin air. This one gentleman found a piece of a Portuguese Gazette wherein the said land was describe and stated as Comunidade land, though the case has been won and the order given to reinstate the said land as Comunidade land in the land survey record and the sale deed declared null n void, the fraudsters have appealed to the higher court, without any hope of victory just to harass the people involved against the sale deed. We will fight and fight we will.

Most of the Comunidade land has somehow disappeared, this is theplight of the community land in Goa, with the present ruling in favour of protection of Comunidade lands there seems to be a slight hope to restore parity. Hope it will serve the purpose.

We all know that most of the laws in India of which we Goans are unfortunately a part of, have loopholes as wide as the Amazon, to such an extent that even the supreme Constitution itself is as porous as our national borders. Any law in court is turned upside down by the men in black coats with a stroke of genius. So unfortunately our law in India is at the mercy of the men black coats rather than the Constitution. I only hope the present order of the Supreme Court does not get turned on it’s head for our elite to sell what’s left of our Community land to the land sharks. Our corrupt Goan politicians are known for entrapping Supreme Court Orders through over night ordinances.

With the present ruling, can we Goans honestly say that our Community land will be protected? It’s for us to perceive and act.