A protective statute is only as strong as the consequences it attaches to its breach. The Goa, Daman and Diu Mundkars (Protection from Eviction) Act, 1975 does not leave a wrongfully evicted mundkar to the slow machinery of civil suits alone; it criminalises the act of eviction itself. Two distinct penal layers operate here: a targeted offence for actually evicting a mundkar or disturbing his easements under section 4(7), punishable with up to one year's imprisonment and compensation, and a residuary penalty under section 34 for any other contravention of the Act or rules. A persistent point of student confusion is the section number: the topic is popularly tagged "section 32", but section 32 in fact deals with the stay-and-reference of civil suits, while the dedicated Penalty provision is section 34. This article maps the full penal architecture, the enforcement powers that sit alongside it, and the jurisdictional rules that channel every mundkar dispute away from the ordinary civil court.
The penal scheme at a glance: ss.4(7)-(9), 34 and 35
The Act builds its enforcement in concentric rings. The innermost and sharpest sanction is section 4(7), which punishes the substantive wrong the statute was enacted to prevent — the actual eviction of a mundkar, or disturbance of the customary easements he enjoys under section 6. Wrapped around it is the residuary section 34, the provision actually titled "Penalty", which catches "whoever contravenes any of the provisions of this Act or of any rule made thereunder". Section 35 extends liability to companies and their responsible officers. A common misconception, reinforced by loose tagging on study portals, is that penalties live in "section 32"; in the bare Act section 32 is headed Suits involving issues required to be decided under this Act and is purely procedural. Candidates who cite "section 32" for the penal sanction in a judiciary answer will lose marks. The correct map is: s.4(7) (eviction offence), s.4(8) (attempt/abetment), s.4(9) (summary restoration plus penalty), s.34 (general penalty, cognizance, compounding) and s.35 (companies). For the substantive eviction grounds this enforcement protects, see our note on the restricted grounds of eviction, and for the underlying entitlement, the security of residence.
Section 4(7): the core offence of wrongful eviction
Section 4 is headed Bar to eviction from a dwelling house and restoration of possession, and its sub-section (1) declares that no mundkar shall be evicted from his dwelling house except in accordance with the Act. Sub-section (7) gives that prohibition criminal force. It provides that any person who "evicts or causes the eviction of a mundkar, in contravention of sub-section (1), or, in any manner, disturbs or interferes with the customary easement or other right which a mundkar is entitled to enjoy under section 6, shall on conviction be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year or with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees or with both, and shall be liable also to pay compensation to the mundkar for the damages caused to him by his eviction". Three features deserve emphasis. First, the offence covers not only physical ouster but interference with the right to power, water and customary easements under section 6 — cutting off a mundkar's water supply to force him out is itself punishable. Second, the words "causes the eviction" rope in those who procure eviction through agents. Third, the conviction does not displace the civil remedy: the offender remains liable to compensate, so the criminal and restitutionary consequences run together.
Sections 4(8) and 4(9): attempt, abetment and summary restoration
Section 4(8) closes the gap that an inchoate-offence loophole would otherwise open: "Any person who attempts to contravene or abets the contravention of the provisions of sub-section (1) or of section 6, shall be deemed to have contravened the said provisions." The deeming clause means an abettor or a person who merely attempts the eviction is treated as a principal contravener and exposed to the same liability — a bhatkar who instigates musclemen to throw out a mundkar cannot escape on the plea that he did not lay hands himself. Section 4(9) supplies a swift restitutionary tool that operates independently of conviction: where a person fails to restore possession in compliance with an order under sub-section (4) or (6), he shall, "in addition to any other penalty to which he may be liable, be summarily removed by the Mamlatdar", who then restores possession to the mundkar. This is a powerful self-executing remedy — the Mamlatdar need not wait for the criminal court; he can physically reinstate the mundkar and recover possession from the recalcitrant bhatkar. The penal liability under s.4(7) and the summary removal under s.4(9) are cumulative, not alternative.
Section 34: the residuary penalty, cognizance and compounding
Section 34, the provision actually titled Penalty, is the general catch-all. Sub-section (1) provides that "whoever contravenes any of the provisions of this Act or of any rule made thereunder shall, on conviction by a first class judicial magistrate, be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees or with both". Two procedural rules in sub-section (2) are heavily examined. First, "notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, every offence under this Act shall be cognizable" — so the police may register and investigate without a magistrate's prior order, overriding the default classification the CrPC would otherwise assign to a three-month offence. Second, such an offence "may, with the permission of the Court, be compounded" — compounding is permitted but only with judicial leave, not at the parties' free will. Trial lies before a Judicial Magistrate of the First Class. Note the relationship between s.34 and s.4(7): s.4(7) is the specific, heavier provision (one year / Rs 2,000) for eviction, while s.34 is the lighter residuary provision (three months / Rs 1,000) for breaches of other obligations, such as failing to comply with rules, registers under section 29, or other duties under the Act.
Section 35: offences by companies
Section 35 imports the now-standard corporate-liability template. Sub-section (1) fixes vicarious liability: where an offence under the Act is committed by a company, "every person who at the time the offence was committed was in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of the business of the company as well as the company" is deemed guilty. The proviso supplies the escape route familiar from cognate statutes — no such person is liable if he proves the offence was committed without his knowledge or that he exercised all due diligence to prevent it. Sub-section (2) reaches further: where the offence is proved to have been committed with the consent, connivance of, or is attributable to neglect on the part of any director, manager, secretary or other officer, that officer is also deemed guilty. The Explanation defines "company" to include a firm or other association of individuals, and "director", in relation to a firm, to mean a partner. The practical upshot is that a builder or estate company that evicts mundkars to clear land for development cannot shelter behind the corporate veil; its directors face personal prosecution.
Why "section 32" is not the penalty section: the stay-and-reference rule
Because the topic is widely indexed under "section 32", it is worth stating precisely what section 32 does. Headed Suits involving issues required to be decided under this Act, it provides that if a suit in a civil court involves any issue required to be settled, decided or dealt with by the Mamlatdar or the Collector under the Act, the civil court "shall stay the suit and refer such issues" to that authority for determination; the Mamlatdar then decides the issue under the Act and communicates his decision, whereupon the civil court decides the suit accordingly. This is a jurisdiction-channelling device, not a penal clause. In Suresh Shirodkar v. Administrative Tribunal, Goa, Daman and Diu (Bombay High Court at Goa, 22 January 1998) the Court explained the section 31–32 scheme in detail, holding that whenever an issue of mundkarship arises in a civil suit the court must stay the suit and refer the issue to the Mamlatdar, who alone is competent to decide it. The penalty provisions — ss.4(7) and 34 — sit two and three sections further on. For how mundkar status is established in the first place, see recognition of a mundkar.
Section 31: the jurisdictional foundation of enforcement
The penal provisions cannot be read apart from section 31, which both protects officers acting in good faith and ousts the civil court. Section 31(1) bars any suit, prosecution or legal proceeding against an officer for anything done in good faith under the Act. Section 31(2) is the operative bar: "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 consequence is that the threshold questions — whether a person is a mundkar and whether the structure is a dwelling house — fall exclusively to the Mamlatdar. In Antonio Salvador Francisco v. Pedro Carvalho, 2000(1) ALL MR 612 (Bombay High Court, Panaji Bench), the Court applied this scheme to hold that a structure situated beyond the statutory distance limits from the dwelling house could not form part of it, so that on those facts no reference to the Mamlatdar was warranted — illustrating that the bar bites only where a genuine mundkar-issue arises. The interplay of ss.31 and 32 thus decides which forum, criminal or civil, can entertain a given dispute.
Backing the penalty: restoration and execution under s.22
Penal sanctions are reinforced by the Act's own execution machinery. Section 22 empowers the authorities to execute an order for payment of money or for restoring possession as if it were a decree of a civil court, so a mundkar who secures a restoration order is not left to launch fresh proceedings. Read with s.4(9)'s power of summary removal, the Act gives the Mamlatdar a direct route to put the mundkar back in possession and recover the dwelling house from a defaulting bhatkar. The compensation limb of s.4(7) is similarly enforceable. This integrated design — criminal liability under s.4(7)/s.34, deemed liability for abettors under s.4(8), summary restoration under s.4(9), and money/possession execution under s.22 — means the protective scheme does not depend on the mundkar mounting a separate civil suit. It is the practical answer to the historical vulnerability the legislation was enacted to cure, as traced in our introduction to the Act.
Defences: lawful eviction, declaration and bona fide need
An accused under s.4(7) is not liable if the eviction was lawful — that is, carried out in accordance with the Act on a recognised ground after an order of the competent authority. The grounds are confined and statutory: a mundkar can be evicted only on the limited bases in section 12, and a bhatkar who needs the site for genuine personal occupation must establish that need through the proper channel, as explained in our note on the bona fide need of the bhatkar. Section 8A allows a party to seek a declaration of mundkarship, or a negative declaration that the occupant is not a mundkar; the Bombay High Court in Dattaram A. Arolkar v. Mamlatdar of Mormugao (AIR 2001 Bom 74) recognised the section's role in resolving such status disputes. A bhatkar who has obtained a lawful eviction order and acts within it commits no offence; conversely, self-help eviction — ousting the mundkar without an order — is precisely what s.4(7) criminalises, however genuine the bhatkar's underlying claim may be. The lesson for the litigant is unambiguous: route every eviction through the Mamlatdar, never through force.
A constitutional caveat on the penal regime
The penal provisions must be read against the litigated history of the Act. Certain amendments — notably those introduced with retrospective effect from 27 September 1995 — were challenged, and the Bombay High Court at Goa, by its judgment dated 16 December 2003 in Writ Petition No. 86 of 1997, struck down the impugned provisions as ultra vires Article 14 read with Article 13(2) of the Constitution; the legislature responded with the Amendment Act 11 of 2005. The core penal sections discussed here — s.4(7), s.34 and s.35 — trace back to the principal Act of 1976 and have not been displaced, but a candidate should be alert that the definitional and purchase-related provisions surrounding them have a turbulent amendment record. When applying the penalty, the version of the relevant substantive obligation in force at the date of the alleged contravention controls. For the foundational vocabulary that the offences presuppose, see the definitions of mundkar, bhatkar and dwelling house and the subject hub.
Exam takeaways
For judiciary and CLAT-PG purposes, fix five points. (1) The dedicated penalty provision is section 34 (up to three months / Rs 1,000 / both), not "section 32" — section 32 is the stay-and-reference rule. (2) The specific, heavier offence for actually evicting a mundkar or disturbing his section 6 easements is section 4(7) (up to one year / Rs 2,000 / both, plus compensation). (3) Attempt and abetment are deemed contraventions under section 4(8); non-restoration triggers summary removal by the Mamlatdar under section 4(9). (4) Offences are cognizable and triable by a Judicial Magistrate First Class, and may be compounded only with the court's permission (s.34(2)). (5) Section 35 fastens liability on companies and their responsible officers. Anchor every answer in the section 31 jurisdiction bar — the Mamlatdar, not the civil or criminal court, decides whether a person is a mundkar in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
Is the penalty for evicting a mundkar found in section 32?
No. Section 32 is headed Suits involving issues required to be decided under this Act and merely requires a civil court to stay a suit and refer mundkar issues to the Mamlatdar. The penalties live in section 4(7) (wrongful eviction) and section 34 (general penalty). The popular tag "section 32" for penalties is a misnomer.
What is the punishment for wrongfully evicting a mundkar?
Under section 4(7), a person who evicts or causes the eviction of a mundkar in contravention of section 4(1), or disturbs his customary easements under section 6, is on conviction punishable with imprisonment up to one year or fine up to Rs 2,000 or both, and is also liable to pay compensation for the damage caused.
What does the general penalty under section 34 provide?
Section 34(1) punishes any contravention of the Act or its rules with imprisonment up to three months or fine up to Rs 1,000 or both, on conviction by a Judicial Magistrate First Class. Section 34(2) makes every offence under the Act cognizable and compoundable with the court's permission, notwithstanding the CrPC.
Are offences under the Act cognizable and can they be compounded?
Yes. Section 34(2) provides that, notwithstanding the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, every offence under the Act is cognizable, so police may register and investigate without prior magisterial order. Such offences may be compounded, but only with the permission of the court — not by the parties acting alone.
Can a company or its directors be prosecuted for evicting mundkars?
Yes. Section 35 deems the company and every person in charge of and responsible for its business guilty, subject to a due-diligence defence. Directors, managers or secretaries are also liable where the offence is committed with their consent, connivance or neglect. "Company" includes a firm, and "director" includes a partner.
Does a conviction also force the offender to restore possession?
The penal and restitutionary consequences run together. Section 4(7) makes the offender liable to pay compensation; section 4(9) lets the Mamlatdar summarily remove a person who fails to restore possession under an order and reinstate the mundkar; and section 22 allows orders for money or restoration to be executed like a civil decree. As Suresh Shirodkar confirms, the Mamlatdar's jurisdiction over these matters is exclusive.