Dispose of tenancy and mundkar cases swiftly: HC to govt

Panaji: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has issued directions to the collectors, additional collectors, mamlatdars, joint mamlatdars and other revenue officers to strictly implement the state government’s order dated September 14, 2022 with regard to the disposal of tenancy and mundkar cases.

The court has directed that the pending cases under the Tenancy and Mundkar Acts should be disposed of as expeditiously as possible and in any case within the timeline set out in the government’s order of September 14, 2022.

The high court’s division bench comprising Justice M.S. Sonak and Justice Valmiki Sa Menezes also said, “Furthermore, the collectors and additional collectors must also implement the government’s order dated 14.09.2022 by monitoring the disposal of cases and ensuring that the reports in the prescribed formats are regularly submitted.”

With regard to the pendency of tenancy and mundkar cases, the high court also directed the state government to place on record the statistics of the pendency position in the districts of North Goa and South Goa.

It said, “Though we are disposing of these petitions by issuing the above directions, we direct the

collectors of both the districts to file compliance reports in this court by 30.09.2023.”

The court said, “These compliance reports must indicate the pendency position as of 31.03.2023 and the pendency position as of 30.09.2023. This will indicate the status of compliances. In addition, in the compliance

reports, the two collectors must at least indicate in a tabular format whether the necessary reports, as contemplated by the order dated 14.09.2022, were submitted by the respective mamlatdars/ joint mamlatdars each month and state the action taken by the collectors, additional collectors and the revenue secretary in cases of non-compliance or inadequate compliances.”

It may be noted that two petitions were filed before the high court praying for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the joint mamlatdar of Bardez to dispose of the tenancy/mundkar proceedings pending before him expeditiously and preferably within a time-bound schedule.