Important Point
Section 7 of the A.P. Land Grabbing (Protection) Act, 1982 providing constitution of Special Courts is constitutionally valid.

Judgment

Mrs. Sujata V. Manohar, J.-Leave granted.

2. On 29th June, 1982 the State of Andhra Pradesh promulgated the Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Ordinance, 1982. It was subsequently replaced by the Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibi­tion) Act, 1982. The Act has since been amended twice-once by Andhra Pradesh Act 16 to 1987 and again by Andhra Pradesh Act 6 of 1988.

3. In 1996 a practising advocate filed a writ petition before the Andhra Pradesh High Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982. One N. Venkatesh also addressed a letter to the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court with a press clipping relating to the appointments to the Special Court constituted under the Andhra Pradesh Land Grab­bing (Prohibition) Act, 1982, which was treated as a writ petition. Both these petitions were heard together. By the impugned judgment, the Andhra Pradesh High Court gave certain directions which can be summarised as follows:

(1) The State shall convey to the Registrar of the High Court all material pertaining to the qualifications and ability/suitability etc. of the existing incumbents both Judicial Members and Revenue Members of the Special Court constituted under the said Act forthwith;

(2) The Registrar shall place the material so received before the Chief Justice of the High Court and shall convey the orders of the Chief Justice of the High Court in this behalf to the Chief Secre­tary to the Government;

(3) The State is restrained from making any appointments of Judicial Members and Revenue Members without “the consultation in respect of the selection of such Member/Members with the Chief Justice of the High Court”; and

(4) The State shall decide whether any incumbent Judicial Mem­ber/Revenue Member shall continue after receiving the opinion in this behalf of the Chief Justice of the High Court and such incumbent shall cease to function in case opinion adverse to his continuance is con­veyed to him.

4. The present appeals are filed from the above judgment and order.

5. The Statement of Objects and Reasons for the said Act states, “It has come to the notice of the Government that there are organised attempts on the part of certain lawless persons operating individually and in groups to grab either by force or by deceit or otherwise lands belonging to the Government, a local authority, a religious or char­i­table institution or endowment, including a wakf or any other private persons. The land grabbers are forming bogus co-operative housing societies or setting up fictitious claims and indulging in large scale and unprecedented and fraudulent sales of land through unscrupulous real estate dealers or otherwise .....”. The Special Court has been set up under the said Act to deal with such acts of land grabbing.

6. The challenge in the proceedings is to the constitutional validity of Section 7 relating to the appointments to be made to the Special Court. The relevant parts of Section 7, as it stands at present, are as follows :

“7. Constitution of Special Courts:- (1) The Government, may, for the purpose of providing speedy enquiry into any alleged act of land grabbing, and trial of cases in respect of the ownership and title to, or lawful possession of, the land grabbed, by notification, constitute a Special Court.

(2) A Special Court shall consist of a Chairman and four other members, to be appointed by the Government.

(3) The Chairman shall be a person who is or has been a Judge of a High Court and of the other four members, two shall be persons who are or have been District Judges (hereinafter referred to as Judicial Members) and the other two members shall be persons who hold or have held a post not below the rank of a District Collector (hereinafter referred to as Revenue Members) :

Provided that the appointment of a person who was a Judge of a High Court as the Chairman of the Special