For a few weeks now, Goa’s Legislative Assembly has been consumed by two Bills that rewrite the rules of property ownership. In a state where land is the biggest story, the Bills have turned political discourse into a battlefield. The new laws make it easier to legitimise illegal construction, while simultaneously making it harder to hold on to community property.
Dramatic scenes have unfolded over the first Bill – the Goa Legislative Diploma No. 2070 (Amendment) Act, 2025—that allows people who built unauthorised houses on comunidade land before 28 February 2014, to regularise their encroachment. They can get ownership of up to 300 square metres, covering the house’s plinth plus a two-metre buffer zone. Opposition MLAs rushed to the well of the House twice, forcing the speaker to adjourn the House. Despite the protests, the Bill was passed.
The legislation is being projected as a “humanitarian gesture” for what the government calls “landless persons”, defined as those who’ve lived in the state for at least 15 years but don’t own other property. The Bill includes a consent mechanism requiring comunidade approval, but with a crucial catch: If the comunidade doesn’t respond within 30 days, or refuses without “reasonable” grounds, consent is automatically deemed granted.
The second piece of legislation, the Goa Escheats, Forfeiture and Bona Vacantia Act 2024, establishes a framework for the government to take over properties of people who die without legal heirs. While the Bill was passed last year, the rules came into effect only last month. When authorities find such properties, they conduct a “summary inquiry”, and if no claims emerge within three months, the property can be forfeited to the state. The vague nature of the Act’s definitions, however, has drawn severe criticism.
The government has argued that the Bills provide legal security to long-term residents, while preventing illegal sales of ownerless properties. But critics see something entirely different: A reordering of Goa’s centuries-old land ownership patterns under the guise of efficiency.
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Community ownership
To understand why these Bills have sparked such fury, it’s important to first grasp the unique pattern of land ownership in Goa. A comunidade is a codification of the ancient “gaunkari” landholding system that predates Portuguese rule. Traditionally, comunidades operated as collective landholders where decisions about land use were made in consultation, and the land itself wasn’t alienable.
These communidade lands have been under constant pressure for decades, with the very principle of collective ownership being questioned. “The government of Goa does not own all the land in Goa,” explained Socorro Menezes, Attorney for Comunidade de Jua. “Revenue lands constitute less than 10 per cent of total land area. The rest belongs to the comunidade.” The government’s role, according to the Code of Comunidades 1961 (Legislative Enactment No. 2070), is limited to “administrative tutelage” or supervisory powers, not ownership rights.
According to a detailed O Heraldo Review report, “The 1961 reforms explicitly rejected the earlier bifurcated system of dominium utile and dominium directum, which had given the state ultimate ownership while comunidades held only usage rights. The new framework established comunidades as property owners with the same rights as private individuals to determine land usage and rental terms… comunidade properties belong entirely to the communities rather than operating under a split ownership structure where the state retained superior rights.”
This makes the new Amendment particularly contentious. Menezes, along with other managing committee members of other comunidades, who has made a representation to the governor on behalf of All Goa Comunidade, argues that the government is essentially giving away property that belongs to village communities, not the state. Over the years, comunidades have routinely granted land to the government for infrastructure projects like roads and hospitals. Several of Goa’s special economic zones or industrial areas, like Verna and Patto Panaji, were built on comunidade lands. Not all of those benefits, however, have channelled back to the community.
Socorro Menezes pulls no punches when he says that successive governments have tried their level best to make comunidades defunct. His argument hinges on a fundamental legal question: Does the government have the authority to make decisions over land it does not own?
“The comunidade is the rightful caretaker of the land,” he said. “This is like someone walking into your house, deciding to live there, and the authorities granting that space to the encroacher.”
Menezes said that regularising illegal unauthorised houses ignores the rights of the many people who can stake a rightful claim on comunidade land. It also incentivises people to break the law. “How can we tolerate encroachment on our lands? What about the people who follow the rule of law?”
Beyond these fundamental constitutional concerns, there is the niggling worry about the Amendment’s impact on protected comunidade lands. The existing Code restricts development on areas such as those set aside for cattle grazing, agricultural operations, reservoirs, and religious sites. Each regularised encroachment represents a permanent reduction in the comunidade’s productive capacity and revenue stream (already strained by government control over sluice gates and agricultural yield), making it harder for these ancient institutions to sustain themselves.
The regularisation process could permanently railroad these protections, converting protected areas to residential use. Everyone in Goa knows where that road leads—down the swanky corridors of the real-estate lobby that has sold bits of the state to people who have built their fourth holiday homes here.
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Laws for ‘favourites’
The Escheats Act, meanwhile, has triggered a different kind of panic, especially among Goans living and working abroad who fear their ancestral properties could be seized while they’re away. Carlos Ferreira, MLA from Aldona and former Assistant Solicitor General of India, had confronted CM Pramod Sawant in the Assembly last year. “I asked the question, what is ‘abandoned’ property? The CM said it was the same as escheat property,” Ferreira told me during an interview. “A property without an heir might be abandoned, but a property that seems abandoned might still have an heir!”
His concern centres on the Act’s vague definitions and inadequate notification process. The law requires authorities to publish notices in local newspapers and the Official Gazette, but Ferreira sees this as flawed for a diaspora community scattered across the globe. He also said that according to the law in force in Goa, only when the sixth degree in order of succession is not available to succeed as heir, the property passes over to the State. “But it seems like the government wants to fast-track this system. They will first take over your property, then you fight for it, and maybe somewhere down the line, you will have to settle for a compromise.”
Ferreira suggested the government had introduced the act with an eye on grabbing properties of Goans and “giving it to their favourites”. He pointed to the Chief Minister’s claim that 60 such properties had been identified, referencing a one-man commission headed by Justice VK Jadhav that looked into land grabs. “But we haven’t seen the copy of that report,” he said.
The Escheats Act, when viewed in conjunction with the Comunidade amendment, represents a circular controversy. The Opposition has repeatedly labelled the Amendment “Bhumiputra Bill version 2.0.” The original Goa Bhumiputra Adhikarini Bill was introduced in 2021 and scrapped two years later, thanks to massive public opposition. But Ferreira argues the government is now achieving the same objectives through different legal channels.
Then, as now, the Bill was criticised as an example of vote bank politics. Migrant communities can be a very important demographic, especially in a low-density state like Goa. After all, even Pramod Sawant retained his Sanquelim seat in 2022 by a margin of less than 700 votes.
Will these two Bills also bear the same fate as the Bhumiputra bill? Ferreira’s assessment of the situation is withering: “The CM and his party have made so many assurances, but the on-ground performance has been abysmal,” he said. “It reminds me of the Alfred Tennyson poem, The Lotos-Eaters. You want to keep the population on a high and tease them with great expectations.” That parallel is apt. In Tennyson’s poem, the lotos-eaters live in a mesmerised stupor, ignoring their homes and duties. The only difference here is that lotos-eating is not optional.
This article is part of the Goa Life series, which explores the new and the old of Goan culture.
Karanjeet Kaur is a journalist, former editor of Arré, and a partner at TWO Design. She tweets @Kaju_Katri. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)