Amit Agarwal
On 9th August, Goa’s Legislative Assembly passed the Goa Public Records Bill of 2023 due to a high number of land fraud cases in which public records were destroyed or replaced with fake documents.
The Bill requires prior government approval to take public records out of state and mandates a records officer for every record-creating agency. The records officer is responsible for the records room to prevent tampering and vandalism of public records, which can lead to land fraud in Goa.
The records officer will have to take proper care of the records and take appropriate steps to recover or restore such public records from tampering and vandalism.
The bill includes strict punishments for violating the law, including imprisonment for up to five years, a fine of up to Rs 10,000, or both.