The Herald : Margao: Sunday, June 25, 2023.
Three sisters have alleged that their ancestral property in Sukhobatt, Seraulim has been grabbed. They found a fake death certificate that merged their two late spinster aunts into one person, and falsely claimed she had a husband and great grandson.
Carmelina Da Cunha, Mashia Da Cunha, and Ida da Cunha e Fernandes, the rightful heirs, held a press conference in Margao on Saturday, to address these developments. The siblings have also filed a lawsuit in the District Civil Court and lodged a complaint with the Special Investigation Team (SIT) regarding the land grab.
Carmelina said she discovered the fraud when she came across a public notice about the property in the newspaper and verified it with the survey numbers. The Da Cunha sisters were shocked to find their ancestral properties transferred to an unrelated individual’s name.
“The properties, surveyed under No. 77/1 and 80/2, belonged to my maternal aunts, Maria Elena Abrew Costa and Maria Elmiria Etelvina Piedade Abrew Costa, who had acquired them through a family partition deed. Upon their deaths, the properties passed to their brother, Ramiro Rafael Costa, through a registered succession deed in 1992. We possess this succession deed,” said Carmelina.
She clarified that Ramiro Rafael Costa and his wife had no children and that she and her siblings were the only living heirs of her maternal uncle. Maria Elena Abrew Costa and Maria Elmira Etelvina Abrew Costa passed away in 1987, and Carmelina possesses their death certificates as well.
Explaining the elaborate land scam, Carmelina said, “Glen Agnelo Costa, in cahoots with his wife Carol Rose Gracias, falsely claimed to be the great grandson of Maria Elena Abrew Costa in an inventory they created. They merged Maria Elena Abrew Costa and her sister into one person in the inventory and fabricated a fake death certificate for Maria Elena Abrew Costa,naming some Domingos Antonio Costa as her husband. According to the inventory proceedings, Maria Elena Abrew’s date of death was shown as 1973 and Domingo’s as 1976.”
However, knowing the death dates of her aunts, Carmelina applied for burial certificates and subsequently obtained death certificates from the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP), which confirmed that her aunts had died in 1987. “Now since the fraudulent death certificates issued by CCP in inventory were shown to be in 1973 and 1976 I applied for those certificates also in CCP. I was shocked to note that my aunts died twice in 1973 and 1987. So, I asked how it is possible for one person to die twice. They were confused and had no answer,” she said.
“So, under RTI Act, I applied for reports of the fraudulently entered death certificate. CCP immediately deleted the records from their system and under the same death registration number, the name of the deceased is shown as ‘unknown’. Now when an unknown person dies in the hospital, the name of the deceased is shown as unknown,” she explained, adding that this provided a foundation for the fraudsters to execute the inventory and transfer the properties into their own names. “They manipulated the mutation process and succeeded in erasing my aunts' names from forms I and XIV,” she explained.
“The fraud couple, Glen Agnelo Costa and his wife, reside in Umtawado, Calangute but fraudulently claimed to be from Seraulim in the inventory,” she said. “Furthermore, they alleged that Maria Elena Abrew inherited all the properties when her brother Ramiro possessed the succession deed,” she added.
In another major twist, the lady advocate from Margao whom the sisters had hired to handle the necessary paperwork and transfer the properties to their names, also attempted to cheat them, they allege. The advocate drafted a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and requested a small plot of land measuring 390 sq mts as payment, which the family agreed to. They also granted Power of Attorney (PoA) to their elder brother, Assumsao Santano da Cunha, as advised by the advocate. However, they were initially not allowed to read or get a copy of the PoA and got it only after saying they will file a complaint.
“Now, the advocate has not signed the MoU but my whole family is witness to it. After receiving the MoU and PoA we were shocked to read that this lady lawyer and my brother had taken away so many of our powers,” said Carmelina. While Carmelina immediately revoked the POA and MoU, she alleged that she and her family members received threats from the advocate.
“I have all the call recordings of this lady advocate,” said Carmelina, and also shared details of another person claiming to have purchased a plot on their property. She appealed to the Chief Minister to take action against the involved officers, and highlighted the injustice faced by Goans.
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