Goa, Sept. 5 -- The battle over Goa's controversial land regularisation laws has in tensified, with the Margao and Aquem Comunidades accusing the South Goa Administrator of Comuni dades of high-handedness in blocking their efforts to defend community lands in court. At their monthly meet ing in Margao, leaders re vealed that their request to use comunidade funds to finance a writ petition in the High Court had been rejected.

The comunidades had sought to jointly chal lenge the recently notified amendments to the Code of Comunidades, which they argue legitimise en croachments and strip them of ownership rights. "We are still going ahead with filing of the writ peti tion against the new laws using personal funds," said Celestino Noronha, A...