A point that trips up most aspirants first: the right of appeal under the Goa, Daman and Diu Mundkars (Protection from Eviction) Act, 1975 lives in Section 24, not Section 35. The bare Act, as reproduced in the Manual of Goa Laws and on indiacode.nic.in, captions Section 24 “Appeal”, Section 25 “Revision” and Section 26 “Extent of powers in appeal or revision” — there is no Section 35 governing appeals. Whatever the question paper calls it, the substantive law of the first-tier remedy against a Mamlatdar’s order is Section 24, and that is what this note dissects: who may appeal, to whom, within what time, against which orders, and how the Bombay High Court at Goa has read the crucial phrase “original order”.
The “Section 35” label and the correct provision
Begin by fixing the citation, because an examiner will not. The appellate machinery of the 1975 Act is concentrated in Chapter III (“Power, functions, appeals, etc.”), running from Sections 20 to 28. The operative appeal provision is Section 24, headed “Appeal”; the bare text on indiacode.nic.in and the Manual of Goa Laws contain no Section 35 dealing with appeals at all. Any reference to “Appeals (Section 35)” is therefore a mislabelling — likely a carry-over from a differently numbered statute or a syllabus typographical slip. The safe approach in an answer is to state the correct section openly: “The right of appeal is conferred by Section 24 of the Act (sometimes erroneously cited as Section 35).” This single sentence signals command of the bare Act, which is exactly the discrimination examiners reward. For the wider scheme of the statute, see our introduction to the Goa Mundkars Act and the subject hub.
The text and structure of Section 24
Section 24 reads: “From every original order, other than an interim order, passed by the Mamlatdar or the Collector under this Act, an appeal shall lie to the Collector or the Administrative Tribunal respectively and the order of the Collector or the Administrative Tribunal, as the case may be, shall, subject to revision if any, under section 25 of this Act, be final.” Three structural features must be memorised. First, the appeal is against the Mamlatdar or the Collector. Second, it lies to the Collector or the Administrative Tribunal “respectively” — the word does the heavy lifting, pairing each original authority with its appellate forum. Third, the appellate order is declared “final” but expressly “subject to revision” under Section 25, so finality here means “no further appeal”, not “no further remedy”. The provision creates a tiered forum-mapping rather than a single appellate court.
Who appeals to whom: the forum map
Reading Section 24 with the “respectively” clause, two distinct appellate channels emerge. An original order of the Mamlatdar — the trial-level authority who decides mundkarship, eviction and purchase claims — is appealable to the Collector. An original order of the Collector (when the Collector acts as an original authority, for instance in transfer or certain miscellaneous matters) is appealable to the Administrative Tribunal, the body constituted under the Goa, Daman and Diu Administrative Tribunal Act, 1965. In practice the overwhelming bulk of Mundkar litigation starts before the Mamlatdar, so the first appeal almost always goes to the Collector. A recurring source of confusion is the designation of that appellate officer: the bare Act says “Collector”, but the function is routinely discharged by the Deputy Collector or Additional Collector to whom the Collector’s appellate powers stand delegated, and the judgments use whichever designation actually signed the order. The lesson for an answer is to treat “Collector” in Section 24 as including the officer exercising the Collector’s delegated appellate jurisdiction; the statutory tier is unchanged, only the nomenclature varies. Thus in Joseph Alme’da v. Krishnanath Harayan (Bombay HC at Goa, 17 October 1986) the Mamlatdar of Salcete’s order was carried in appeal to the Additional Collector and thereafter in revision to the Administrative Tribunal, illustrating the Mamlatdar → Collector → Tribunal ladder in operation.
What is an “original order”: the Shirodkar question
The most litigated phrase in Section 24 is “original order”, because not everything a Mamlatdar does is a self-standing original order. The flashpoint is the reference mechanism: under Section 32, where a civil suit throws up a mundkarship issue, the Civil Court stays the suit and refers that issue to the Mamlatdar, who decides it and reports back. Is the Mamlatdar’s answer on a Section 32 reference an “original order” appealable under Section 24, or a mere finding folded into the civil suit? In Suresh Shirodkar v. Administrative Tribunal, Goa, Daman and Diu (Bombay HC at Goa, 22 January 1998, N.J. Pandya, J.), the Court held that the Mamlatdar’s decision on a Section 32 reference is appealable under Section 24. The reasoning is instructive: “original order” must be understood by reference to the authority who passes it — it is an order of the authority of first instance — and the route by which the matter reaches the Mamlatdar (independent application or court reference) does not change the character of the final outcome.
The Division Bench reference in Teresinha Coelho
The Section 32-versus-Section 24 question was important enough to be referred to a larger bench. In Teresinha Coelho v. Inacio Pio Jesus De Sa, the Bombay High Court at Goa framed the precise question for a Division Bench: “Whether the decision of the Mamlatdar under Section 32(2) of the Goa, Daman and Diu Mundkar (Protection from Eviction) Act, 1975 on an issue referred to it under Section 32(1) is subject to an appeal under Section 24 of the Act or not.” The litigation’s own history shows the appellate machinery working as designed: the Mamlatdar of Tiswadi answered the reference against the claimants; they appealed under Section 24 to the Deputy Collector (the appellate authority), who allowed the appeal; and the matter then travelled to the Administrative Tribunal in revision under Section 25(1). The case confirms both the practical forum map and the seriousness with which the courts treated the appealability of reference-decisions.
Interim orders excluded — but injunctions are not
Section 24 deliberately carves out “interim orders” from the appellate net: an appeal lies only from an “original order, other than an interim order”. The Legislature thus avoided fragmentary appeals against procedural or provisional directions. But the Explanation attached to Section 24 inserts a vital qualification: “for the purpose of this section, ‘interim order’ shall not include an injunction order, and such orders shall be subject to appeal and revision.” The drafting is doubly significant for the Mundkar scheme, because the Act arms the Mamlatdar with strong injunctive powers to protect a mundkar’s security of residence — restraining threatened eviction, restoring cut-off electricity or water, or preserving a customary easement. Were injunctions treated as ordinary interim orders, a wrongly granted or refused injunction would be unappealable until final disposal; the Explanation prevents that gap by making injunction orders independently appealable and revisable.
Limitation, condonation and court fees (Section 28)
The time-limit for invoking Section 24 sits in Section 28. Every appeal (or revision application) “shall be fixed within a period of sixty days from the date of the communication of the order” of the Mamlatdar, Collector or Administrative Tribunal. Crucially, Section 28(1) imports Sections 4, 5, 12 and 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 — so the 60 days run from communication (not pronouncement), the appellant gets exclusion of time for obtaining the certified copy under Section 12, and, most importantly, delay is condonable on sufficient cause under Section 5. Section 28(2) overrides the Court Fees Act, 1870 and requires every appeal or revision to bear a court-fee stamp of the prescribed value. Two practical consequences follow for an aspirant. First, because limitation runs from communication, the appellant must plead and prove the date on which the order was actually served; a vague averment invites dismissal as time-barred. Second, the selective importation of only Sections 4, 5, 12 and 14 means other Limitation Act provisions (for instance Section 14’s sister doctrines on continuous running) do not automatically apply — the appellant cannot claim benefits the legislature deliberately left out. Note also the contrast with revisional supervision under Section 25(2): where no appeal lies, the Collector may suo motu, or on an aggrieved person’s application, call for the record of any Mamlatdar’s proceeding to test its legality, propriety and regularity, but only within six months of the order and after a hearing to interested parties. That longer outer limit reflects the supervisory, rather than party-driven, nature of the power, and it functions as a safety valve precisely where the ordinary 60-day appeal under Section 24 is unavailable.
Powers of the appellate authority (Sections 26 and 27)
The appellate forum is not a mere endorsing authority. Section 26(1) empowers the Collector, the Administrative Tribunal or the Government, in appeal or revision, to “confirm, modify or rescind” the impugned order “or pass such other order as may be legal and just in accordance with the provisions of this Act” — a full appellate jurisdiction over both fact and law. Section 26(2) makes appellate orders executable in the same manner as a Mamlatdar’s order, so an appellate reversal restoring possession to a mundkar is directly enforceable, and any money directed to be paid is recoverable as arrears of land revenue under Section 22(1). Section 27 reinforces this by clothing the Mamlatdar, Collector, Tribunal and Government with the powers of the corresponding trial, appellate or revisional court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. The appellate authority therefore exercises CPC-equivalent powers — to summon witnesses, compel production of documents, re-appreciate the entire evidence, and frame and decide additional points — rather than the constricted powers of a writ court. Two corollaries follow. Because the appeal is a full re-hearing on facts and law, the appellate authority can substitute its own finding on mundkarship for the Mamlatdar’s; and because Section 21(2) requires every order under the Act to state the reasons for it, a non-speaking appellate order is itself liable to be set aside in revision or on writ. The breadth of Section 26 read with Section 27 is what makes the Section 24 appeal a meaningful protection rather than a formality, and it is why a litigant who skips the appeal and rushes to the High Court is routinely sent back to exhaust this efficacious alternative remedy first.
Appeal as the route round the civil-court bar
The appeal scheme cannot be understood in isolation from Section 31, the bar of jurisdiction. Section 31(2) provides that no Civil Court shall settle, decide or deal with any matter that the Act commits to the Mamlatdar, Collector, Tribunal or Government, and that no order passed by such authority “shall be questioned in any Civil or Criminal Court.” The corollary is constitutionally important: because the ordinary civil suit is ousted, the in-built appeal under Section 24 and revision under Section 25 become the principal corrective mechanism within the statute, with the High Court’s writ jurisdiction under Articles 226/227 as the residual check beyond it. This is why the courts construe “original order” generously, as in Suresh Shirodkar — a narrow reading would leave reference-decisions on mundkarship effectively unappealable, defeating the protective purpose discussed in our note on the bhatkar’s bona fide need. The interface between Section 31 and Section 32 also explains why the appeal is so jealously guarded: when a Civil Court stays its suit and refers a mundkarship issue under Section 32(1), the Mamlatdar’s answer under Section 32(2) binds the civil proceeding, and the civil suit cannot independently reopen that finding because Section 31(2) bars it. The only orthodox way to attack a wrong reference-decision is therefore the statutory appeal under Section 24 followed by revision under Section 25 — which is exactly the chain Teresinha Coelho traversed. Read together, Sections 24, 25, 31 and 32 form a closed, self-contained adjudicatory circuit in which the appeal is not a luxury but the load-bearing corrective.
Procedural texture: reasons, pleaders and judicial character
Several procedural rules shape how a Section 24 appeal actually runs. Section 21(3) deems all inquiries and proceedings before the Mamlatdar, Collector, Tribunal and Government to be judicial proceedings within the meaning of Sections 193, 219 and 228 of the Indian Penal Code — so false evidence in an appeal attracts perjury consequences, underlining the seriousness of the forum. Section 21(2) mandates a reasoned order at every tier, giving the appellate authority something concrete to test and an aspirant a ready ground (“non-speaking order”) for challenge. Section 33 generally bars pleaders from appearing before the Mamlatdar or Collector, though they may be permitted in the interest of justice for reasons recorded — a feature designed to keep the protective jurisdiction accessible to often-illiterate mundkars, but one that shifts once the matter climbs to the Tribunal. Together these provisions make the appeal a genuine re-hearing on a documented record rather than a formal rubber-stamp.
Finality, revision and the writ remedy
Section 24 ends by declaring the appellate order “final”, but read with Section 25 that finality is conditional. From an appellate order, a revision lies to the Administrative Tribunal or the Government, and only the order on revision is truly final under the Act. The hierarchy is therefore three deep on the contentious mundkarship track: Mamlatdar (original) → Collector/Deputy Collector (appeal, Section 24) → Administrative Tribunal (revision, Section 25), as the procedural history of both Joseph Alme’da and Teresinha Coelho demonstrates. Beyond the statute, the High Court at Goa retains supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 and writ jurisdiction under Article 226, which is how cases like Suresh Shirodkar reached it. For exam purposes, the disciplined statement is: a Mundkar order is corrected by appeal under Section 24, then revision under Section 25, with the constitutional courts as the final, narrowly exercised check.
Frequently asked questions
Which section actually governs appeals under the Goa Mundkars Act, 1975?
Section 24, captioned “Appeal”, is the operative provision; Section 25 deals with revision and Section 26 with the extent of appellate powers. There is no Section 35 governing appeals in the bare Act — a reference to “Section 35” is a mislabelling, and the correct citation to use is Section 24.
To whom does an appeal lie under Section 24?
It depends on who passed the original order. An order of the Mamlatdar is appealable to the Collector (in practice often the Deputy/Additional Collector designated as appellate authority), while an original order of the Collector is appealable to the Administrative Tribunal. The word “respectively” in Section 24 fixes this pairing.
What is the limitation period for filing an appeal?
Section 28(1) prescribes sixty days from the date of communication of the order. Sections 4, 5, 12 and 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 apply, so delay is condonable on sufficient cause under Section 5 and time for obtaining the certified copy is excluded under Section 12.
Are interim orders and injunctions appealable under Section 24?
Ordinary interim orders are not appealable — Section 24 permits appeal only from an “original order, other than an interim order.” However, the Explanation to Section 24 expressly states that an injunction order is not treated as an interim order, so injunction orders are independently appealable and revisable.
Is a Mamlatdar’s decision on a Section 32 civil-court reference appealable?
Yes. In Suresh Shirodkar v. Administrative Tribunal (Bombay HC at Goa, 1998) the Court held that a Mamlatdar’s decision on a Section 32 reference is an “original order” appealable under Section 24, because the character of the order depends on the first-instance authority passing it, not on the route by which the matter reached the Mamlatdar.
What powers does the appellate authority have, and what comes after appeal?
Under Section 26 the appellate authority may confirm, modify or rescind the order or pass any just and legal order, exercising CPC powers under Section 27. After a Section 24 appeal, a revision lies under Section 25 to the Administrative Tribunal or the Government, whose order is final; beyond that, only the High Court’s writ jurisdiction under Articles 226/227 remains.