The Goa, Daman and Diu Mundkars (Protection from Eviction) Act, 1975 is a self-contained code. To make its social purpose work, the legislature pulled an entire class of disputes out of the ordinary civil courts and vested it in revenue officers — the Mamlatdar and the Collector. Section 31 erects the bar; Section 32 supplies the safety valve when a mundkar issue surfaces inside an ordinary suit. This note maps how the bar operates, what survives it, and how the courts have policed its edges.
The statutory scheme behind the bar
The Act creates a parallel adjudicatory machinery. By Section 8A a person may seek a declaration that he is a mundkar; by Section 12 a bhatkar may seek eviction only on the restricted statutory grounds; by Section 15 a mundkar may purchase his dwelling house. Every one of these questions is routed to the Mamlatdar, with appeal to the Collector or Administrative Tribunal under Section 24, revision under Section 25, and finality thereafter. Section 27 expressly clothes these officers with the powers of a trial, appellate and revisional court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and Section 21(3) deems their proceedings to be judicial proceedings. Having built this dedicated forum, the legislature had to close the ordinary civil court — otherwise litigants could simply re-agitate the same questions before a Munsiff. Section 31 does exactly that. For the entry point into this scheme, see the introduction and the foundational definitions of mundkar, bhatkar and dwelling house.
Section 31: protection and bar of jurisdiction
Section 31 is captioned “Protection of action taken under the Act and bar of jurisdiction of Courts” and has two limbs. Sub-section (1) is an immunity clause: “No suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding shall lie against any officer for anything in good faith, done or intended to be done under this Act.” Sub-section (2) is the jurisdiction bar proper: “No Civil Court shall have jurisdiction to settle, decide or deal with any question or to determine any matter which is by or under this Act required to be settled, decided or dealt with or to be determined, by the Mamlatdar or the Collector or the Government or the Administrative Tribunal and no order passed by such authority under this Act shall be questioned in any Civil or Criminal Court.” The bar is therefore double-edged: it removes the civil court’s power to decide the question in the first instance, and it insulates orders already passed by the statutory authorities from collateral attack in any civil or criminal court.
What falls within the bar
The bar is keyed to matters “required” by the Act to be decided by the named authorities. The controlling question in every case is therefore: does the Act require this issue to be decided by the Mamlatdar or Collector? If yes, the civil court is ousted. The paradigm example is the status question — whether a person is a mundkar at all. Because Section 8A places the power to declare mundkar status in the Mamlatdar, a civil court cannot entertain a suit for a declaration of mundkarship, nor can it decide that question as a step towards some other relief. In Suresh Shirodkar v. Administrative Tribunal, Goa, Daman and Diu (Bombay High Court at Goa, 22 January 1998), the Court confirmed that no civil court has jurisdiction to settle, decide or deal with any question required to be decided by the Mamlatdar, Collector, Government or Tribunal, and that orders passed by them cannot be questioned in a civil or criminal court. Eviction of a mundkar (a matter for the Mamlatdar under Section 12, examined in eviction of a mundkar on restricted grounds), the right to purchase under Section 15, and registration in the register of mundkars under Section 29 all fall squarely inside the bar.
Section 32: the reference safety valve
A rigid bar would be unworkable, because a mundkar question often arises incidentally inside an ordinary civil suit — a partition suit, a suit for possession, or an injunction action — where the rest of the dispute is genuinely civil. Section 32 solves this. Sub-section (1) provides: “If any suit instituted in any Civil Court involves any issues which are required to be settled, decided or dealt with by the Mamlatdar or the Collector under this Act the Civil Court shall stay the suit and refer such issues to the Mamlatdar or the Collector, as the case may be, for determination.” Sub-section (2) completes the loop: the Mamlatdar or Collector “shall deal with and decide such issues in accordance with the provisions of this Act and shall communicate his decision to the Civil Court and such Court shall thereupon decide the suit in accordance with the procedure applicable thereto.” The mechanism is mandatory — the word is “shall” — so a civil court faced with a genuine mundkar issue cannot decide it itself; it must stay, refer, and await the Mamlatdar’s answer before proceeding.
Reading Section 31 with Section 32
Sections 31 and 32 are complementary, not contradictory. Section 31 ousts the civil court from deciding a mundkar question; Section 32 tells the civil court what to do when such a question nonetheless arises in a suit otherwise within its competence. The civil court retains seisin of the suit as a whole — it does not return the plaint — but it parks the mundkar issue with the Mamlatdar and decides the rest on the answer received. Thus a partition or title suit between co-owners is maintainable in the civil court even where a defendant pleads that he occupies part of the property as a mundkar: the court does not throw out the suit, it refers the mundkar issue under Section 32. The distinction matters for limitation and pleadings — the suit survives, only the discrete issue travels. A useful test for the practitioner is whether the relief claimed in the suit can be granted without deciding the mundkar question: if it cannot, the question is a “required” one within Section 31, and a Section 32 reference becomes unavoidable. Conversely, if the mundkar plea is a mere defensive flourish that does not bear on the relief, the civil court need not refer at all. The reference is therefore not triggered by every passing mention of mundkarship, but only where the issue is genuinely material to the suit. This is structurally identical to the reference mechanism in the agricultural tenancy code; see the parallel treatment in recognition of a mundkar and the procedure before the Mamlatdar.
Are the Mamlatdar's findings on a reference appealable?
A practical controversy is whether the Mamlatdar’s decision on a Section 32 reference is final between the parties or can be challenged. In Suresh Shirodkar the Bombay High Court at Goa held that a decision rendered by the Mamlatdar on a Section 32 reference is appealable under the Act’s own appellate framework — an appeal to the Collector or Administrative Tribunal under Section 24 — and is not a one-off finding immune from correction. The Court reasoned that treating such findings as non-appealable would generate conflicting parallel proceedings and defeat the legislative intent of providing finality through the Act’s own hierarchy. The consequence is significant: the civil court that made the reference must await not merely the Mamlatdar’s order but the working out of the statutory appeal, because Section 24 makes the appellate order “final” subject only to revision under Section 25. For the substantive rights the Mamlatdar protects in that inquiry, see rights of a mundkar and security of residence.
Finality: orders not to be questioned in civil court
The closing words of Section 31(2) — “no order passed by such authority under this Act shall be questioned in any Civil or Criminal Court” — give the statutory orders conclusive force. A bhatkar dissatisfied with a declaration of mundkarship, or a mundkar aggrieved by an eviction order, cannot file a fresh civil suit to undo it; the only route is the Act’s internal appeal and revision and, thereafter, writ jurisdiction under Articles 226 and 227. This is reinforced by Section 30, which gives an entry in the register of mundkars presumptive value — it “shall be presumed to be true until the contrary is proved or a new entry is lawfully substituted” — and by Section 38, the overriding clause, under which the Act “shall have effect notwithstanding anything… in any other law or any custom or usage or decree or order of a court, or any agreement or contract.” Section 38 means even a prior civil decree inconsistent with the Act yields to it.
Ancillary bars: attachment, pleaders and execution
The jurisdiction bar is buttressed by several allied provisions. Section 19 bars the civil court’s execution machinery from reaching the mundkar’s dwelling house: “The interest of mundkar in his dwelling house shall not be liable to be attached, seized, or sold in execution of a decree or order of a Civil Court.” A creditor with a money decree against the mundkar therefore cannot levy execution on the protected dwelling. Section 33 bars pleaders from appearing as of right before the Mamlatdar or Collector, though they may be permitted “in the interest of justice and for reasons to be recorded in writing,” with the rider that pleader’s fees cannot be taxed as costs — a deliberate design to keep the forum accessible to the typically poorer mundkar. Section 22 routes execution of monetary and possession orders through the revenue machinery (recoverable as arrears of land revenue), again bypassing the civil court. Together these provisions ensure the bar is not merely jurisdictional on paper but operationally complete.
Mundkar status as the recurring battleground
The most litigated application of the bar concerns mundkar status. In Smt. Gulabi Sangtu Devidas v. Smt. Prema Govinda Gauncar (Bombay High Court at Goa, 31 August 1993), the Court held that a dismissal of an application under Section 29 (registration in the register of mundkars) does not preclude a fresh application under Section 8A for a declaration of mundkar status, because the two proceedings answer different questions — registration versus substantive declaration. The corollary for the jurisdiction bar is that both questions belong exclusively to the Mamlatdar; a litigant cannot leapfrog into the civil court because one statutory remedy failed. Similarly, in Kum. Maria Eliza Marques v. Madhukar M. Moraskar (Bombay High Court at Goa, 1997), the claimant’s route to a declaration of mundkarship lay under Section 8A before the Mamlatdar, not in a civil suit. The lesson is consistent: status is for the revenue forum, and the civil court must refer under Section 32 rather than decide.
What the bar does not touch: writ jurisdiction
Section 31 ousts the civil court, not the constitutional court. The supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court under Articles 226 and 227 is unaffected, because a statute cannot exclude the constitutional remedy. Orders of the Mamlatdar, Collector and Administrative Tribunal are routinely tested in writ — indeed Suresh Shirodkar itself reached the Bombay High Court at Goa through a batch of writ petitions, not a civil suit. The practical takeaway for an aspirant: once the Act’s internal appeal under Section 24 and revision under Section 25 are exhausted, a party aggrieved by a jurisdictional error, a finding without evidence, or a denial of natural justice moves the High Court in writ — never by way of a fresh civil suit, which Section 31(2) forbids. The bar channels, rather than abolishes, judicial scrutiny. It is also worth noting the limits of the writ remedy: the High Court in supervisory jurisdiction does not sit as a further court of appeal on facts. Where the Mamlatdar and the appellate authority have concurrently found, on evidence, that a person is or is not a mundkar, the High Court will not reappreciate that evidence; it intervenes only where the finding is perverse, vitiated by an error of law apparent on the face of the record, or reached in breach of natural justice. This deferential standard is the price of the exclusive forum — having vested the jurisdiction in expert revenue officers, the scheme expects their factual conclusions to be respected, and a litigant who hopes that a writ petition will reopen the merits misunderstands both Section 31 and the nature of Article 227 review.
Applying the bar: a practical checklist
When a dispute touches a Goan dwelling house, the analysis runs in steps. First, identify whether a question “required” to be decided by the Mamlatdar or Collector is in play — mundkar status (Section 8A), eviction (Section 12, see eviction on restricted grounds), purchase (Section 15) or registration (Section 29). Second, if the whole dispute is such a question, the civil court has no jurisdiction at all under Section 31(2); the party must go to the Mamlatdar. Third, if the question arises only incidentally in an otherwise civil suit, the civil court must stay and refer that issue under Section 32, then decide the suit on the answer. Fourth, any order of the statutory authorities is challenged only through Sections 24–25 and thereafter in writ, never by a fresh civil suit. The bhatkar’s competing interests — examined in bona fide need of the bhatkar — are themselves adjudicated within this same forum. For the complete framework, return to the Goa Mundkars Act hub.
Frequently asked questions
Which section bars the jurisdiction of civil courts under the Goa Mundkars Act?
Section 31(2). It provides that no civil court shall have jurisdiction to settle, decide or deal with any question or determine any matter which the Act requires to be decided by the Mamlatdar, Collector, Government or Administrative Tribunal, and that no order of those authorities shall be questioned in any civil or criminal court.
What happens if a mundkar issue arises inside an ordinary civil suit?
Section 32 applies. The civil court must stay the suit and refer the mundkar issue to the Mamlatdar or Collector for determination. The authority decides the issue under the Act and communicates its decision, and the civil court then decides the suit accordingly. The reference is mandatory, not discretionary.
Can a person file a civil suit for a declaration that he is a mundkar?
No. The power to declare mundkar status lies with the Mamlatdar under Section 8A. As confirmed in Suresh Shirodkar v. Administrative Tribunal, Goa (Bombay High Court at Goa, 1998), such a question is required to be decided by the statutory authorities, so a civil court is ousted by Section 31.
Is the Mamlatdar's decision on a Section 32 reference final?
It is appealable within the Act. In Suresh Shirodkar the Court held that a decision on a Section 32 reference can be appealed under Section 24 to the Collector or Administrative Tribunal, with revision under Section 25; it is not an unappealable one-off finding. The civil court awaits the working out of that hierarchy.
Does the bar prevent challenge to a Mamlatdar's order in the High Court?
No. Section 31 ousts only the civil court. The High Court's writ jurisdiction under Articles 226 and 227 survives, because a statute cannot exclude the constitutional remedy. After exhausting appeal under Section 24 and revision under Section 25, an aggrieved party moves the High Court in writ, not by a fresh civil suit.
Can a money decree be executed against a mundkar's dwelling house?
No. Section 19 bars attachment, seizure or sale of the mundkar's interest in his dwelling house in execution of a decree or order of a civil court. The protection is reinforced by Section 38, the overriding clause, under which the Act prevails even over an inconsistent decree or order of a court.