On Friday, OHeraldo brought to light the plight of litigants in Salcete, who are demanding the government to establish a system to handle revenue cases and hold employees of Mamlatdar’s offices accountable for their uncooperative behaviour.
Taking the matter seriously, the Additional Collector-I sought explanations from the Mamlatdar’s offices, only to uncover a shocking revelation. There are currently 2,370 revenue cases pending for disposal in Salcete, and the number of pending cases has reduced to less than half over the past year.
What’s more alarming is that the hearings of these revenue cases are being postponed due to the other responsibilities of the Presiding officer, especially time-bound tasks such as election duty, law and order issues, inspections, census work, dying declarations, and other routine administrative work.
The reply from the Mamlatdar’s office further divulged that amongst revenue cases, 407 of the cases are pending before the Joint-Mamlatdar-II, Salcete, followed by 350 and 329 cases before the Joint Mamlatdar-III and Joint Mamlatdar-IV, respectively.
The reason for pendency depends on the facts and stages of each case, such as reply, evidence, cross, demarcation, further appearance, publication of notice, bringing legal heirs on record, and orders. To add to the burden, many interim applications such as amendment applications, addition of documents, addition of parties, and preliminary objections are filed by the parties, which have to be decided upon after hearing both sides. This is causing further delay in the proceedings, explained Mamlatdar Laxmikant R. Desai in his response to the Additional Collector. Desai has requested the provision of the services of one junior stenographer per court to ease the work of recording and drafting evidence, cross, and history of the particular case.
He believes this will reduce the workload of the concerned court as the procedure is time-consuming, thus giving them more time to dispose of the cases. The Additional Collector-I has directed all courts of Mamlatdars of Salcete to dispose of the pending revenue cases as soon as possible.
