THE Goa Human Rights Commission is a statutory body established under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 to make recommendations in cases of human rights violations. This is what we are led to believe when we read the official website which declares The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, provides for the constitution of National Human Rights Commission, at national level and State Human Rights Commissions at the State level for better protection of human rights and matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
The Goa Human Rights Commission was set up on March 4, 2011 to uphold violations of human rights but as I will show below, allegedly took eight years to decide it had no powers to decide whether there was a violation of human rights after I was brutally assaulted. The two members, Desmond D’Costa and Pramod Kamat, violated my human rights by torturing me for eight years when they should have decided their powers at the outset!

ILLEGAL HOUSES
I COMPLAINED to the Goa Human Rights Commission in November 2018 after I was brutally assaulted by those who had put up illegal houses in the private forest zone of Salvador do Mundo. I was neither the complainant nor interested in the matter as I had merely accompanied my aged client, John Menezes, who had pleaded with me to represent him before the Directorate of Panchayats at Panjim and also during a site inspection to be held on September 27, 2018.
Without going into unnecessary detail, the then sarpanch, Sandeep Salgaocar, is facing a criminal trial for allegedly assaulting me on the date of the site inspection and allegedly inciting the owners of the illegal houses to brutally assault me and even kill me as per my complaint made to the police. One day earlier, on September 26, 2018 I had visited the Porvorim police station and met the then deputy SP, Kiran Poduval, with a written request asking for police presence during the site inspection. Poduval promised to send a police vehicle to the site inspection. From what I later learnt, he allegedly phoned up one Shailesh Shetty to ask the local MLA and minister that I with my client had approached the Porvorim police to ask for police presence.
The local MLA and minister allegedly told Poduval not to send a police vehicle. The next day I was brutally beaten up and the same Dy SP, Kiran Poduval, allegedly planned a false FIR 129/2018 against me by allegedly interchanging the timings of my FIR (which I had lodged first in time, before the secretary of the panchayat, Avinash Palni, was told to lodge a typed complaint).

5-YEAR BATTLE
PODUVAL allegedly planned the false FIR which took me five long years to battle in court between 2018 and 2023 during which time two of my family elders died. The High Court of Bombay at Goa saw through the criminal conspiracy involving the police and quashed the false FIR against me while dismissing the two writ petitions filed by Sandeep Salgaocar and his accomplice who had to face a trial.
But my agony was yet to begin. The two members of the Goa Human Rights Commission first congratulated me on winning my court battle. But after six months, during late 2023, they made a volte face. The acting chairperson, Desmond D’Costa, began to accept frivolous application after application asking me to produce witnesses when there were no witnesses to produce as my client, John Menzes had expired. Desmond D’Costa kept cracking jokes, and as I have alleged in my emails complaining to the governor of Goa and the chief minister, not allowing me or my junior advocate, to make his submissions.
Other complainants have told me how Desmond D’Costa allegedly wastes time by cracking jokes, such as telling me “come for the exposition of Saint Francis Xavier so you can visit Old Goa and come here the next day.” These absurd jokes prove he was not serious about disposing off matters. I had no choice but to lodge several complaints about him to the chief minister and the Goa governor.
“All is fair in love and war. Produce your witnesses,” first Desmond D’Costa directed me. I complained to the Hon’ble Governor of Goa, seeking that Desmond D’Costa recuse from hearing my complaint. During all this time, the Porvorim Police did not put in a single appearance. What is shocking is the remark made by these members: “If the high court has quashed the false FIR against you, then approach the high court to seek relief.” Such remarks appear disrespectful to the high court.
Desmond D’Costa who had allegedly begun to entertain frivolous applications with dilatory tactics, recused himself. But his colleague, Pramod Kamath, who was a law secretary in the Goa government and probably had come into contact with the administration and ministers, used to sit sphinx-like in the courtroom, without saying anything and refusing to open his mouth while Desmond D’Costa kept cracking absurd jokes and allegedly just passed the time while I had to spend huge sums of money to visit the Goa Human Rights Commission from Mumbai, because my junior advocate was not effective enough nor did he assert himself. By then, I had lodged my final arguments with the Goa Human Rights Commission.
After Desmond D’Costa recused himself, I put up several applications accusing the other member, Pramod Kamat, of being biased against me and entertaining frivolous applications to produce non-existent witnesses. Despite applications to recuse himself, Pramod Kamat refused to do so saying it was the presiding officer who had the sole prerogative to recuse himself and a litigant could not put up applications asking him to do so.

SHEER ABSURDITY
NOW it was very obvious that Pramod Kamat was biased against me and would dismiss my complaint after eight long years. The sheer absurdity of the issue is that whether the court or a commission has jurisdiction to try a complaint or not, has to be decided right at the beginning and not at the end when the judgment is to be delivered. Pramod Kamat not only refused to recuse himself but was determined to dismiss my complaint which is why I sought his recusal.
Pramod Kamat passed two orders both dated May 8, 2025 with the second order absurdly overriding the first order bearing the same date. As predicted, Pramod Kamat dismissed my complaint at the end of eight years torture saying he had no powers to try the complaint and I should approach the high court instead.
The point is that the Goa government wastes tax payers’ money by giving these members posh office premises and large air-conditioned rooms to hear violations of human rights, when these members allegedly do not discharge their duties conscientiously. Both Desmond D’Costa and Pramod Kamath have tortured me financially and mentally by wasting my time and energy during which two of my family members died.
These two members who are supposed to uphold human rights have themselves violated my human rights with impunity.