Sandesh Prabhudesai
17 September 1998
A teacher by profession, he was working as the headmaster of a private school in his Candolim village in North Goa's famous coastal belt. An artist at heart, he is known all over Goa for playing remarkable role in providing new direction to the movement of "tiatr" - the traditional Konkani theatre. He is one of the few sarpanchas in the tourist state who had a continuos term of 17 years, during which period the coastal belt witnessed the construction boom, spoiling natural beauty of the golden beaches.
Tomazinho Cardoz, the controversial speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly, has won several state-level awards for innovatively performing "tiatr', singing, script writing and direction. He has 17 books to his credit, out of which 11 are the award-winning "tiatr" scripts he wrote and performed successfully. He was awarded nine times for the best direction and 14 times at the state-level festival of Mando - Goa's traditional musical dance.
Despite being the undisputed president of the Goa Headmasters Association for a long term, he does not like comparing his academic or artistic career with his short-term political performance. But little he is known all over the country for his excellence in these fields than the speaker's post he is handling, which was bestowed upon him by the Congress party. First time he was elected the MLA from Calangute constituency, to be made the speaker amidst controversy in the House in January 1995.
He is a good script writer and the director, say his opponents, but neither he wrote the script nor he directed the latest political "tiatr" Goa witnessed in the Assembly when 10 Congress legislators, under the leadership of chief minister Wilfred de Souza, split from the ruling party to form a new coalition government. Cardoz must be one of the few speakers in the country against whom the Bombay high court judges have passed serious strictures, while opponents charged him of conspiring with Rane.
Immediately after de Souza group revolted while the session was on, he passed the ex-parte ad-interim relief, restraining 10 members of the breakaway group - Goa Rajiv Congress - from entering the House, when Goa Governor Lt Gen (retd) J F R Jacob had told former chief minister Pratapsing Rane to seek confidence vote in the House after revolt in the ruling party. The Panaji bench of the high court set aside his order, describing it as a hasty decision.
Taking serious note of the allegedly dubious role Cardoz played in helping Rane to win the confidence vote and the conflicting reports of division vote he sent to the governor when actually no such voting had taken place, the Congress government was dismissed and Dr Willy was hurriedly installed the new chief minister at late night. The governor's action was decried even in both Houses of the Parliament by the Congress.
Reacting to the same disqualification petition before him, based on which he had passed the ex-parte ad-interim relief, he passed an order disqualifying all the 10 GRC members including the chief minister, eight cabinet ministers and the deputy speaker, on the eve of the day de Souza was supposed to seek the confidence vote. The high court, while granting stay to the disqualifications, once again made serious observations about the manner in which he had passed the order.
Then came the final blow, when the high court in its final judgement quashed his order of disqualification, clearing the major hurdle for Dr Willy to win the confidence vote, but almost 40 days after he was installed the chief minister, thanks to the "historic role" played by Cardoz. As a result, even the governor had to postpone his 21-day deadline by three more weeks, till the petition challenging the speaker's disqualification order was disposed of by the high court.
The high court judges literally named him bias, acting totally in a partisan manner, with malafide intentions, by abandoning fair play and in violation of principles of natural justice, while dismissing Cardoz's contention that split in the original party is a must. The court also observed that split in the original party at local as well as the national level did take place since some of the "defectors" were AICC and GPCC members.
All these high court orders are now being challenged by Rane and his Congress colleagues in the supreme court while Cardoz is planning to intervene into it through his lawyer, basically to reject the allegations made by the judiciary against the legislature head. SANDESH PRABHUDESAI spoke to him at his Candolim residence while the ruling party is now planning to remove him from the post of the speaker. Excerpts :
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