Goa: Forged and sold twice, Arjuna awardee gets house after 6 yrs

PANAJI: It took around six long years for orthopaedic surgeon Dr Otilia Mascarenhas — an Arjuna awardee of Goan origin — and her husband to get two fraudulent sale deeds of their property at Socorro declared null and void by the court.
Their ancestral house, spread over 1,525 sqm in the North Goa village, was sold by an unknown person in 2013 and the trees on the property were cut.Otilia’s was also the first known and reported case of fraudulent property sale in the state by an unknown party while the original owners were away.
Otilia and her family intermittently stayed at their house in Socorro during their visits to Goa. Their last visit there was in June 2013. The fraudulent sale deed was executed just two months later that year, in August.
A resident of Germany, Otilia rushed to Goa after a relative who was passing by the house noticed some activity there. “He immediately called Otilia to inquire if they had sold the property as he had known the house was otherwise shut,” said advocate Joseph Vaz who appeared for Otilia in civil suits she subsequently filed challenging the sale deeds.
“She found that unknown people had illegally occupied her house. Trees on the property had been cut and the property had been purchased by one Moses Fernandes from South Goa,” said Vaz. Also, valuable items in the house — which included antiques, old furniture, door and wooden arcs fitted onto the doors, and other furniture items — were missing.
If that wasn’t shocking enough, another sale deed of the same property was registered barely a month later in September 2013, which stated that Fernandes had sold the property off to a real estate enterprise that had one Shailendra Rughwani as its managing partner.
Vaz said it was not an easy battle for Otilia — who had served in the Indian Air Force — to regain possession of her property. “She approached former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, requesting him to intervene in the matter. She told Parrikar that if she, a person with resources and influence, could find it so hard to get police assistance, what would people with no connections do?” said Vaz.
Inquiries with the Mapusa sub-registrar’s office brought to light the extent of the fraud. Documents showed that Jose Rosario, a dead maternal uncle of Otilia’s, had signed the sale deed.
“The dead person’s signatures were forged, and a fake PAN was also produced. Even if he were alive, he would not be able to sign the documents as he was incapable of signing properly after suffering a paralytic attack,” Vaz said.
Rosario had made a will in 1997 bequeathing his property to his relatives, including Otilia. He died on June 20, 2002.
“When the person was dead, how could he have signed the sale deed in 2013 and also executed a power of attorney? The defendants were not related to the deceased at all and this was proved in court,” Vaz said.
It was subsequently discovered that a man called Jose Dorosario had impersonated Jose Rosario while executing the first sale deed registered in favour of Moses Fernandes in August 2013.
“This was a well-planned attempt to cheat and defraud Otilia and her husband of her property,” said Vaz.
Both the sale deeds were cancelled by the Mapusa civil court in January 2019.
Vaz is handling another similar matter, that of Dr Sandra De Sa Souza, who is also based out of Goa. Her vacant plot of land measuring over 1,500 sqm and located a few metres away from Otilia’s property in Socorro, was also fraudulently sold in September 2013. In this case, too, the power of attorney was executed through dubious means with Moses Fernandes as a witness.
“Sandra is yet to get relief,” said Vaz, adding that the Porvorim police, under whose jurisdiction both the cases were registered, failed to conduct a thorough investigation. “The government must ensure that fraudulent sale deeds are cancelled by making necessary changes to the law. Let the fraudsters go to court. Why should affected parties be made to fight expensive legal battles to revoke such sale deeds?”