Land Grabbing: Land grabbing matters – By a Government Order, the State of Tamil Nadu, constituted Anti Land Grabbing Special Cells in Tamil Nadu for investigating the cases pertaining to land grabbing, however, without defining land grabbing cases – By the other Government Order the land grabbing cases were ordered to be transferred to the Special Courts constituted to exclusively deal with the land grabbing cases – Writ Petitions against the said G.Os – High Court set aside the G.Os on the ground that the same does not lay down any yardstick or guideline to pick and choose and select particular cases against particular persons said to have indulged in land grabbing and in the absence of definition of the word/phrase “Land Grabbing”, discretion is vested with the police personnel attached to the Anti-Land Grabbing Cell to pick and choose against whom they want to register FIR and thereby, there is possibility of misuse and abuse of the power – Other GO also quashed – On appeal, held: There is no specific enactment and/or Act to deal with land grabbing cases – In absence of any guidelines and/or definition as to which cases can be said to be land grabbing cases, it gives unfettered and unguided and arbitrary powers to the police to treat any land case as a land grabbing case which would be investigated by the Anti Land Grabbing Special Cell – Thus, the High Court rightly set aside the GO with the liberty to the State Government to bring appropriate legislation – Impugned judgment and order of the High Court does not call for interference.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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