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 will be investigated by the Anti- Land Grabbing Special Cell.

JUDGMENT

M.R. Shah, J.

1. Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned common judgment and order dated 10.02.2015 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Madras in Writ Petition No. 18872/2011 and other allied writ petitions, by which the High Court has allowed the said writ petitions and has quashed G.O. (Ms.) No. 423, Home (Police XI) Department dated 28.07.2011 (hereinafter referred to as ‘G.O. No. 423 dated 28.07.2011’) as well as G.O.(Ms.) No. 451, Home (Court III) Department dated 11.08.2011 (hereinafter referred to as ‘G.O. No. 451 dated 11.08.2011’), the State of Tamil Nadu has preferred the present appeals.

1.1 Criminal Appeal No. 275/2022 has been preferred challenging the impugned order dated 04.11.2020 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Madras in Criminal O.P. No. 23641/2019, by which the High Court has directed to transfer the case being C.C. No. 2 of 2012 from the Court of Special Judicial Magistrate, Land Grabbing, Erode to the file of Judicial Magistrate-II, Erode.

2. Vide G.O. No. 423 dated 28.07.2011, the State of Tamil Nadu sanctioned formation of 36 Anti Land Grabbing Special Cells in Tamil Nadu with one cell each at the State Police Headquarters, 7 Commissionerates and 28 Districts to deal with the Land Grabbing Cases in the State. Consequent upon the said G.O., another G.O. bearing No. 451 dated 11.08.2011 came to be issued and the Land Grabbing Cases were ordered to be transferred to the Special Courts which were constituted exclusively to deal with the Land Grabbing Cases. The aforesaid G.Os were the subject matter of the writ petitions before the High Court.

2.1 By the impugned common judgment and order, the High Court has set aside G.O. No. 423 dated 28.07.2011 by holding 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 proceed with the investigation and on account of the same, the possibility of abuse and misuse of power cannot be ruled out. While quashing and setting aside G.O. No. 423 dated 28.07.2011, the High Court has also observed that the State Government is at liberty to bring any appropriate legislation along the lines of the A.P. Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 or better legislations de hors the result of the writ petitions. Consequently, the High Court has also quashed and set aside G.O. No. 451 dated 11.08.2011. The impugned common judgment and order passed by the High Court is the subject matter of present Civil Appeals.

3. Shri R. Shunmugasundaram, learned Advocate General has appeared on behalf of the State of Tamil Nadu.

3.1 Learned Advocate General appearing for the State of Tamil Nadu has vehemently submitted that the High Court has erred in quashing the Government Orders by holding that in the absence of definition pertaining to offence of “Land Grabbing”, the Special Cells constituted for investigating the cases pertaining to land grabbing are not competent to investigate those kind of cases.

3.2 It is further submitted that the High Court has erred in quashing and setting aside G.O. No. 423 dated 28.07.2011 on the possibility of abuse and misuse of power by the police officers. That the possibility of abuse or misuse of a provision by the authority cannot be a ground for a legislation to be held to be arbitrary or violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

3.3 It is next submitted that the High Court has failed to appreciate that the Special Cells were constituted to deal with the specific problem in the State of Tamil Nadu where large number of complaints are being filed alleging that goondas by using their muscle p