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CAN THE PROSECUTION SUCCEED IN HIGH-PROFILE CASES IN GOA?By Dr Olav & Deborah Albuquerque
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CAN THE PROSECUTION SUCCEED IN HIGH-PROFILE CASES IN GOA?By Dr Olav & Deborah Albuquerque

LAW, May 09- May 15, 2026 May 8, 2026 , by

WHETHER the prosecution in Goa can successfully bring about convictions in certain high-profile cases, where those in power may have a stake, is the question doing the round in legal circles. The acquittals by the court culminates in the prosecution headed by its director, claiming the case was weak from the inception. If that be the case, the assistant public prosecutors and the public prosecutors should summon the investigating officer and grill him before returning the charge-sheet and informing the Trial Court that the case has to be investigated further with additional evidence included in the diluted charge-sheet.

  1. This is wishful thinking because the prosecutors who handle the case, invariably address the court without evaluating the complainant or the witnesses. This writer had the obnoxious experience of accomplices of an accused being examined as prosecution witnesses after which the assistant public prosecutor gave his explanation that the Supreme Court has laid down in its judgments that the prosecution is not supposed to have a thirst for convictions but merely bring the facts to the notice of the court and leave it to the court to decide whether to acquit or convict.

(a) The Saint Francis Xavier Row: A Litmust Test for Hate Speech Laws. The most recent and visceral example involves the case of Gautam Khattar, who was arrested in Himachal Pradesh in April 2026, after a viral video of his derogatory remarks against Goa’s patron saint, St Francis Xavier, sparked state-wide outrage. This case should have been immediately charge-sheeted but it has now turned into a legal quagmire.

(b) While the police acted swiftly to arrest Gautam Khattar even though he was not in Goa, the lawyers are eyeing this upcoming trial with skepticism. Historically, “religious sentiment” cases in Goa have a dismal conviction rate. The so-called “incompetence” often cited by observers usually begins at the charge-sheet stage-where vague language and an inability to use the specific sections of the law or reproduce the exact words used in the alleged hate speech results in a failure to prove “intent” to create communal disharmony between communities or religions groups under Section 295A of the old IPC (now the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita will apply).

(c) Ipso facto, these loopholes allow seasoned defense advocates to dismantle the prosecution case proving there was no intention to create communal disharmony. The two vital elements in criminal cases are mens rea (=intention) + actus reus (=action) to bring about conviction. If either of these two ingredients are absent, the defense succeeds in getting the alleged criminal acquitted which has happened frequently in the past, such as the case where a person destroyed the shrines of Hindus and Catholics in south Goa.

(d) He was arrested but was acquitted in all the cases because the charge sheet used his extra-judicial confession to the police as evidence which even a first LLB student knows is inadmissible. The only exception was one case where the JMFC Narayan Amonkar thought it fit to give a verdict at variance from his learned colleagues to proceed with the trial. The outcome is not known but Amonkar himself was superseded to the sessions court, then elevated and reverted back as a magistrate before being elevated again to retire as a sessions judge.

  1. The Ella Bungalow: A Monument to Sub-Judice Stagnation: The most visible scar on Goa’s heritage remains the allegedly illegal bungalow at Ella, Old Goa, situated within the protected heritage zone of the Archaeological Survey of India. Desptie a demolition order issued by the ASI back in August 2022, the structure stands defiantly in 2026.
  2. In February of 2026, the Union Minister for Culture & Tourism, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat informed the Lok Sabha that the demolition has been stalled because the matter is currently sub-judice before the Supreme Court. The timeline of this case reads like a textbook on how legal loopholes can be stretched to infinity.
    • August 2022: ASI orders demolition
    • February 2023: The Bombay High Court at Goa quashes the ASI order on technical grounds
    • 2024-26: The matter enters the labyrinth of the Supreme Court appeals
  3. While the moneybags behind this project — linked to influential political figures in Mumbai – continue to exploit legal delays, the Save Old Goa Action Committee (SOGAC) has refused to back down. Their ongoing litigation against the Union of India represents a desperate plea to protect the UNESCO World Heritage Site from becoming a backyard for luxury villas built by politicians and Bollywood stars linked to politicians. If a structure can stand for four years in a “protected zone” despite a federal demolition order, the ugly nature of the precedents set in Goa is diabolical. This implies that everything and anything is for sale in Go and that everything is negotiable if you hire the right lawyers with the right connections to the politicians in Delhi who run the country.
  4. Section 39A of the TCP Act: This provision has become the tool of choice for a government increasingly accused of “selling Goa, lock, stock and barrel.” Under the guise of correcting errors, in the Regional Plan, Section 39A allows the Chief Town Planner to reclassify land on a case-by-case basis. In practice, this has become evident as “spot zoning” – the surgical conversion of eco-sensitive orchards and forested hills into “settlement zones” for high-end real estate projects.
  5. The backlash reached an apogee last month when retired high court judges, including former Allahabad High Court Chief Justice Ferdino Inacio Rebello, led a mass protest at Azad Maidan under the banner “Enough is Enough.” Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s dismissal of these protesters as “urban naxals” has only fueled the fire. Legally, the provision is being challenged as “frontally and fundamentally unconstitutional” –because it bypasses the mandatory public consultation and village-level consent of the panchayats.

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