Right of Mundkar to Purchase Dwelling House (Sections 15–17)

The Goa, Daman and Diu Mundkars (Protection from Eviction) Act, 1975 does not stop at shielding the mundkar from eviction. Its final and most transformative promise is in Sections 15 to 17: the protected occupier may compel the bhatkar to sell, and thereby convert decades of insecure residence into freehold ownership. Section 15 confers the substantive right and fixes the price, Section 16 lays down the Mamlatdar-driven procedure that culminates in a certificate of purchase, and Section 17 disciplines what the new owner may do with the house thereafter. Together they are the statutory engine that turns security of residence into title.

The Acquisition Scheme: Why Sections 15-17 Matter

The 1975 Act is built in two movements. The first, running through the eviction provisions, freezes the status quo and bars the bhatkar from removing the mundkar except on the restricted grounds in Section 8. The second movement, in Sections 15 to 17, is reformatory rather than merely protective: it allows the mundkar to buy out the bhatkar's interest in the dwelling house and the limited land appurtenant to it. This is the culmination of the agrarian-reform purpose of the legislation, and the Bombay High Court in Kum. Maria Eliza Marques v. Shri Madhukar M. Moraskar (Panaji Bench, 19 November 1997) located the entire statute within the constitutional umbrella of agrarian reform, holding that conferment of ownership on the actual occupier was the legitimate object the legislature was entitled to pursue. The purchase right is therefore not an incidental benefit but the destination of the whole scheme that begins with recognition of mundkar status.

Crucially, the right is statutory and self-contained: it does not depend on the bhatkar's consent. Once the conditions of Section 15 are satisfied, the Mamlatdar can compel the conveyance, and the bhatkar's only entitlement is to the statutorily-fixed price. The hub overview at Goa Mundkars Act notes situates these provisions within the larger architecture of the Act.

Section 15: The Substantive Right to Purchase

Section 15(1) confers the core right: every mundkar is entitled to purchase from his bhatkar the dwelling house occupied by him, together with the land on which it stands and a limited extent of appurtenant land as defined by the Act and its Rules. The right vests in the person who answers the statutory definition of mundkar in relation to a dwelling house as defined in Section 2(i). Because eligibility turns on that definition, the validity of the 1985 amendment that recast Section 2(i) was directly material to the purchase right; in Maria Eliza Marques the Court upheld the amended definition against challenges under Articles 14, 19, 300-A and 31-A, so that houses constructed by the mundkar or with the bhatkar's assistance both fall within the purchasable class.

The right is confined to the dwelling house and the land legally attached to it; it is not a licence to acquire the bhatkar's wider estate. This boundary was firmly drawn in Mrs. Beatriz Patrocinia Leandrina Dias v. State of Goa, 1997(3) ALL MR 705 (Bombay High Court, Panaji), where it was held that the Mamlatdar may demarcate only the area to which the mundkar is entitled under the Act and cannot grant a larger area; any acquisition beyond the statutory extent must rest on a separate agreement between willing parties. The purchase right thus operates within sharp territorial limits.

The Purchase Price: Market Value as on the Appointed Day

Section 15(3) fixes the consideration as the market value of the dwelling house, to be determined by the Mamlatdar after the prescribed inquiry. The Rules direct the Mamlatdar to have regard to prices of similar properties in the vicinity, the location of the dwelling house, expenditure incurred by the bhatkar on construction and improvements, and the broad valuation factors recognised under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. From the value so assessed, the value of any improvements belonging to the mundkar is excluded, since the mundkar cannot be made to pay for what he himself created.

The temporal reference point for valuation has been litigated. The Amendment Acts of 1993 and 1995 sought to insert the words "as prevailing on the appointed day" into Section 15(3), pegging the price to market value as on the appointed date, 12 March 1976, when the principal Act commenced. In Dr. Vasudeo Rajendra Deshprabhu v. State of Goa (High Court of Bombay at Goa, 16 December 2003) the Court struck down those amendments as ultra vires Article 14 read with Article 13(2), holding that compelling the bhatkar to convey at a price frozen at a decades-old figure, while values had multiplied, was manifestly arbitrary and confiscatory. The decision is the leading authority on the valuation date and a reminder that the price, though fixed by statute, must remain constitutionally reasonable. The practical effect of Deshprabhu is that valuation reverts to the market value prevailing at the time the purchase right is actually exercised before the Mamlatdar, rather than at an artificially backdated point, so that the bhatkar receives a real and current consideration for the interest he is compelled to surrender.

Concessional Price for Weaker Sections

The Act tempers the market-value rule with a strong redistributive concession. Where the mundkar is an agricultural labourer, a village artisan, or a member of the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, and whose annual income does not exceed rupees three thousand six hundred, the purchase price payable is reduced to twenty per cent of the market value determined by the Mamlatdar. This provision is the sharpest expression of the Act's social-justice purpose: the occupiers least able to pay are charged the least, and the State effectively subsidises the conversion of tenure into ownership for the poorest mundkars.

This concession dovetails with the loan machinery of Section 18, under which the Government may itself advance a loan to the mundkar for the purchase, or arrange finance through institutions such as the Life Insurance Corporation. Read together, Sections 15 and 18 ensure that the purchase right is not merely theoretical for an impoverished occupier but is backed by an affordable price and access to credit.

Mode of Payment: Instalments and the Lump-Sum Rebate

Section 15 also prescribes how the price is discharged. The purchase price may be paid in not more than ten equal annual instalments, spreading the burden over a decade so that even a mundkar of modest means can fund the acquisition out of ordinary income. The Rules require the second and subsequent instalments to be deposited with the Mamlatdar at intervals of one year.

To encourage early and complete payment, the Act offers a rebate: if the mundkar chooses to pay the entire price in a lump sum, the amount payable is only ninety per cent of the purchase price, a ten per cent discount for full payment. Conversely, default attracts a cost: instalments not paid on time carry interest at six per cent per annum. The payment architecture thus balances accessibility for the poor with an incentive structure favouring prompt and full satisfaction of the price.

Section 16: The Procedure Before the Mamlatdar

Section 16 channels the substantive right of Section 15 through a defined adjudicatory process. A mundkar willing to purchase applies to the Mamlatdar within whose jurisdiction the dwelling house is situated, furnishing the prescribed particulars. The Mamlatdar must give notice to the bhatkar and to any other person interested in the land, and, after such inquiry as may be prescribed, pass an order specifying the extent of land, the purchase price and mode of payment, the amounts due to creditors or in respect of encumbrances, and the order of priority in which payments are to be made.

Procedure is not a formality but a precondition to title. As the courts have stressed, the mundkar's right under Section 15 must actually be exercised and confirmed through the Section 16 process before any ownership or appurtenant-area claim can crystallise; until title is conveyed, the mundkar cannot assert proprietorship over the area around the house. The Mamlatdar's role is quasi-judicial, and the bhatkar's right to notice and hearing is a real one, ensuring that compulsory conveyance does not occur behind his back.

Deposit, Default and the Certificate of Purchase

Section 16 imposes firm deposit timelines. A mundkar electing the lump-sum mode must deposit the entire amount due with the Mamlatdar within one year, while a mundkar paying by instalments must deposit the first instalment within six months of the order; the Mamlatdar may extend either period by up to three months for sufficient cause. Failure to deposit within the permitted time can defeat the application, so the timelines are of practical importance to every aspirant purchaser.

The proceedings culminate in the certificate of purchase. Once the final deposit is made, the Collector issues a certificate of purchase under sub-section (8) of Section 16, in the prescribed Form VI under the 1977 Rules. The certificate operates as conclusive evidence that the dwelling house has vested in the mundkar as full owner, free from encumbrances, and it is the document that completes the conversion of occupier into proprietor. The date of its issue is also the trigger for the alienation restrictions in Section 17, discussed next.

Section 17: The Three-Year Bar on Alienation

Ownership acquired under the Act comes fettered. Section 17(1) provides that a mundkar shall not alienate by sale the dwelling house purchased under the Act within a period of three years from the date of issue of the certificate of purchase, and any transaction in contravention is null and void. The object is anti-speculative: the legislature did not want bhatkars or middlemen to engineer quick re-sales that would defeat the social purpose of conferring a permanent home on the occupier. For three years the mundkar must hold, not flip.

The restriction reinforces the Act's protective ethos but is also a real constraint on the new owner's dominion, and it must be read alongside the heritability rules. In Mrs. Henriqueta D'Souza v. Shri Mangesh D. Mishal, 2014(7) ALL MR 856, the Bombay High Court (Goa Bench) emphasised that mundkar rights devolve only on successors who were residing with the mundkar at the opening of inheritance, underscoring that the statute's benefits, including the fruits of purchase, are tied to actual residence rather than to abstract heirship.

Section 17: The Bhatkar's Right of First Refusal

After the three-year embargo lapses, the mundkar may sell, but not freely. Section 17 grants the bhatkar a statutory right of first refusal. When the mundkar intends to sell the purchased dwelling house after expiry of the three-year period, he must give notice of his intention to the bhatkar in the prescribed manner, specifying the price at which the sale is proposed, and call upon the bhatkar to state, within ninety days of receipt of the notice, whether he is willing to buy at that price.

If the bhatkar agrees, the mundkar must sell to him at the noticed price; if the bhatkar declines or stays silent for ninety days, the mundkar may sell to a third party, but only at a price not lower than that offered to the bhatkar. A sale made without the prescribed notice, or at a price below that noticed to the bhatkar, is void. This pre-emption right gives the former landlord a symmetrical interest: having been compelled to sell under Section 15, he is given the first opportunity to buy the property back should the mundkar ever decide to part with it. The notice requirement is mandatory and not directory; because non-compliance renders the transfer void rather than merely voidable, a purchaser from the mundkar takes no title where the bhatkar was never offered the statutory option. The provision therefore continues to shape the marketability of mundkar-acquired houses long after the certificate of purchase has issued, and conveyancers in Goa routinely insist on proof that the Section 17 notice was served and the ninety-day period exhausted before completing any onward sale.

Practical and Exam Significance

For examination purposes, Sections 15 to 17 are best remembered as a single chain: right and price (Section 15), procedure and certificate (Section 16), and post-purchase restraints (Section 17). The high-value flashpoints are the valuation date controversy resolved in Deshprabhu, the territorial ceiling on the purchasable area laid down in Beatriz Dias, and the constitutional anchoring of the whole scheme in Maria Eliza Marques. Candidates should be able to state the twenty per cent concessional price for weaker sections, the ten-instalment and ninety-per-cent lump-sum rules, the one-year and six-month deposit timelines, and the three-year-plus-ninety-day structure of Section 17.

In practice, the provisions remain heavily litigated because they pit the bhatkar's property interest against the mundkar's social claim, and because procedural lapses before the Mamlatdar frequently undo otherwise valid purchases. A clear grasp of how recognition feeds into purchase, and of where the bhatkar's bona-fide need and eviction defences fit within the larger scheme, is essential to answering problem questions on the Act with confidence. Begin with the introduction to the Act to see how these acquisition provisions complete the protective design.