VICTOR MARTINS Vs. LIRA CARDOZO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These three Second Appeals challenge three Judgments and Decrees dtd. 16/2/2021 of the District Judge-1 (FTC-1), South Goa, Margao. This judgment shall dispose of all three Second Appeals, which have come up for hearing before me under the following circumstances.

(2.) Three suits came to be filed before the Civil Judge Junior Division at Margao which are Regular Civil Suit No. 121/2012, Regular Civil Suit No. 122/2012 and Regular Civil Suit No. 123/2012 wherein the Plaintiffs are respectively the Appellants in Second Appeal No. 36/2023, Second Appeal No. 38/2023 and Second Appeal No. 37/2023. In all these suits, the Plaintiffs sought a decree of permanent injunction against the Defendants, who are common to all three suits. The decree of permanent injunction sought to restrain these Defendants from interfering with the suit properties which are land under Survey No. 121/1 admeasuring 3725 square metres in Regular Civil Suit No. 121/2012, land under Survey No. 121/13 admeasuring 1050 square metres in Regular Civil Suit No. 122/2012 and land bearing Survey No. 121/2 admeasuring 1200 square metres in Regular Civil Suit No. 123/2012. All these suit properties are garden lands under cashew cultivation.

(3.) In defence, the present Appellants/Defendants in these suits, raised a plea in their written statement that the three suit properties formed part of a larger property known as "Marvatollem" in which, their father Shri Ernesto Minguel Martins was an agricultural tenant. It is the claim of the Defendants in the written statement that all these properties were leased by Dr Beatriz de Menezes Braganca to the said Ernesto Minguel Martins, and in terms of the Goa, Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964 (Tenancy Act), the said Ernesto Minguel Martins, in a Tenancy Case No. 109/65 was declared as "deemed tenant" and as a consequence thereof, the four sale deeds through which the Plaintiffs were claiming ownership of the property would be a nullity. The Defendants raised a counterclaim in these suits wherein they sought a declaration from the Civil Court that the aforementioned four sale deeds were null and void and as a consequence, they sought a permanent injunction against the Plaintiffs from interfering with their peaceful possession of the suit properties as also the further properties bearing Survey Nos. 121/3, 121/4 and 121/12, to which they laid a claim of tenancy.