MANY of the judgments delivered by the Constitutional court, which include the 25 high courts and the Supreme Court, iterate the legal position — which is why the apex court declaring that agricultural land cannot be used for a non-agricultural purpose is settled law.
The Supreme Court declared on Monday, July 14 that agricultural lands which are allotted for agricultural use cannot be used for non-agricultural purposes such as construction activity. The Town & Country Planning Department has been de-notifying land in Goa, which builders use for constructing villas and bungalows. The Outline Development Plan has also been allegedly – de-classifying agricultural land for other uses, thereby promoting unchecked urbanization and indirectly allowing non-Goans from Delhi and north India to buy second and third homes in Goa.
This pushes up land prices, making them unaffordable for niz Goenkars who are foolish to sell their ancestral bungalows and lands to migrants and north Indians. But to return to the Supreme Court judgment, a two-judge bench comprising Justices Sudanshu Dhuia and Arvind Kumar delivered this judgment after the Thivim Comunidade filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, challenging a judgment of the High Court of Bombay at Goa dismissing the plea of the Communidade for an out-of-court settlement with a tenant which was dragging on for decades.
The dispute arose in two parcels of land covered by survey Nos 448 and 440 which were leased in 1978 to the heirs of Bhiku Vaingankar and others who died in 1985. One year later, Vaingankar and others sought their names to be entered in the land records as tenants which the Civil Court granted in ex parte (heard on one side only) proceedings on January 8, 1986.
Agrieved by this decision, the Thivim Communidade challenged this decision before the District Court, but even while this court was seized of the matter, this Communidade held an extraordinary general body meeting on March 14, 2021 to resolve this dispute with the Vaingankars. This resolution approved 60 per cent share for the Vainganakars and allowed 40 per cent share for the Communidade.
The Thivim Communidades forwarded this out-of-court proposal to the North Goa Administrator of Communidades to the North Goa Administrative Tribunal (NGAT) which rejected this request, thereby forcing the Thivim Communidade to approach the High Court of Bombay at Goa which upheld the NGAT dismissal. In a clever rewording of the dispute, the Thivim Communidade formulated a question of law of general public importance and approached the Supreme Court which upheld the dismissal of the high court.

VICTIM OF LAND GRAB
I TOO have been a victim of alleged land grabbing, where one Bhagwant Ladu Naik who is or was a panch member of the village panchayat of Salvador do Mundo, tried to grab my ancestral land for the benefit of his relative by marriage, Mahadev Shirodkar. This Bhagwant Naik has been accused of allegedly planning the fabrication of an inward entry in the inward register of the panchayat with the connivance of the panchayat clerk, Ritesh Gadkar.
Due to the corruption of the then PI Devendra Gad of the Porvorim Police Station, no FIR was immediately lodged despite Supreme Court judgments that in cognizable cases, the police must immediately lodge an FIR. The Asst Public Prosecutor was not able to argue the discharge application of the accused who were discharged by an order without cogent reasoning by the then magistrate, Narayan Amonkar who was earlier promoted as a sessions judge but later reverted.
This discharge order was revered by the sessions judge but Bhagwant Naik and Ritesh Gadkar approached the high court to get a stay without impleading me. No action has been taken against the delinquent assistant public prosecutor, whom the former Director of Prosecutions promoted as public prosecutor by holding a sham inquiry where I was not heard.
After ten years, the trial has not begun, and another assistant public prosecutor told me the original inward register which was in the possession of the magistrate’s court was destroyed. Date after date is being given while the accused roam free.

GOVERNOR’S IMPORTANT ROLE
THIS is why governors play an equally important role when they refuse to sign unjust laws, which is what the former governor of Goa, PS Sreedharan Pillai, did when he refused to sign an amendment to the tenancy act. He has now demitted office.
Ravi S Raju, who was a former BJP minister for civil aviation and a career politician, has been notified as the next governor by a Presidential decree dated July 15, 2025. We have to see how he reacts to the various amendments to the laws being passed by the government.
Although it is the President who has to appoint the governors of states, she has to act on the recommendation of the central government and hence this can be construed as a political act. Like the President, governors of states are supposed to be non-political and above party affiliations which is easier said than done given that these governors owe their being elevated to the political parties which nominated them.
WHEN I once met him, Dr PS Sreedharan Pillai, he remarked that he had very limited powers as a governor, which is understandable. However, governors must not be mere rubber stamps but play an active role in the affairs of the state of which they are the nominal head.
I have complained against the Goa Human Rights Commission and some allegedly supercilious and arrogant assistant public prosecutors who destroyed my criminal complaints to the governor and the department of public grievances. The Goa Police have allegedly tried to protect an SP, Kiran Poduval, because despite my innumerable complaints about his allegedly planning a false FIR against me, the then IGP Omvirsingh Bisht and the present IGP Varsha Sharma have not referred to me about any action taken against him.
When the police turn into law-breakers, then lawlessness and land grabbing become regular features.