Justice Jadhav submits ‘land grab’ report to Goa govt

Panaji, Nov 1 The one-man commission headed by retired Justice of the Bombay High Court V.K. Jadhav on Wednesday submitted its report on land grabbing cases to the Goa government.

After submitting the report to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant within ten months, V K Jadhav said “ Now the ball is in the court of the government. I have completed the report in ten months. It has been done in record break time,”

“This scam has been going on since the past 15 to 20 years, where lakhs of square meter of land was grabbed by miscreants. They used to sell government land and no-man's land to others by doing fake documents. This scam is stopped now,” Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said.

Sawant said that the report has been handed over to the chief secretary for further process.

“If we had not taken action then they would have sold more land. There are seven ‘Scam Masters’ in these cases, now enquiry on them will take place. This is a great achievement in my tenure to nab these scam masters,” Sawant said.

Sawant had earlier said that the police treated the land grabbing cases like routine ones, hence the government was forced to establish a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for thorough investigation and to nab the land grabbers.

"People used to lodge their complaints with their respective police stations, who then investigated and kept it (without forwarding it to the concerned departments). Thisforced us to establish the SIT, " Sawant said.

"Last 15 to 20 yearsthis was happening and around 110 properties were grabbed of those people who were staying in other countries or of 'No man’s land'," he said.

The SIT headed by Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) Nidhin Valsan was formed in July 2022 to look into complaints of land grabbing and conversion.

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