Point of Law: "Land grabber" means a person or a group of person who occupy or attempt to occupy with or without use of force, threat, intimidation and deceit, land over which he or they have no ownership, title or physical possession and includes any person who gives financial aid to any person or group of persons for taking up illegal possession of land.

JUDGMENT :

Heard.

Heard Mr. S. Biswas, learned counsel for the petitioners along with Mr. A. Ganguly, learned counsel for the respondent.

2. This revision petition is filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India invoking the supervisory jurisdiction of High Court for quashing and setting aside the impugned order dated 05.01.2022 passed by the Learned Special Judge, Sonitpur, Tezpur, whereby, the petition filed by the petitioners for keeping in abeyance the Land Grabbing case No. 10/2019 till disposal of T.S. No. 29/19 pending before the Learned Civil Judge, Tezpur, was rejected.

3. Brief facts of the case is that, on 30.08.2018, the instant opposite party Sri Biki Sahuon purchased a land measuring 3 Bighas out of the land of 4 bighas from Jaynal Abdin/petitioner No.1, the father of the petitioner Nos. 2 to 7, through a registered Sale Deed No. 1947. It was alleged by the opposite party that the petitioners had blocked the route which goes to the land purchased by the opposite party. Due to such obstruction the instant opposite party was unable to visit his land and had to take another route which goes through the land of others. It was also alleged that the present petitioners were trying to prevent the opposite party from entering into his purchased land and that their whole object was to grab his land measuring 3 bighas, hence the instant opposite party had filed the L.G. Case No. 10/2019 before the Special Court constituted under the Assam Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act 2010.

4. The case of the instant petitioners is that the petitioners No.2 to No.7 who are the sons of Jaynal Abedin/petitioner No.1, on 16.12.2017 had executed an agreement with their father petitioner No.1 to the effect that the petitioners No. 2 to 7 paid an amount of Rs. 4, 80,000/-(Rupees four lakhs and eighty thousand) only to the petitioner No.1, in respect of the land measuring 4 bighas which included the 3 bighas purchased by the opposite party, the agreement was however not registered. The petitioners No.2 to 7 had thus filed a suit being T.S. No. 29/2019, praying for a decree for specific performance of the agreement to sale of the land on 16.12.2017, for cancellation of sale deed dated 30.08.2018 executed between the opposite party and petitioner no.1 and for permanent injunction against the opposite party. The suit was registered as T.S No. 29/2019 which is pending at the stage of evidence before the learned Civil Judge, Sonitpur, Tezpur. This was all prior to the filing of the L.G. Case No. 10/2019 by the opposite party. The petitioners then filed a petition before the learned Special Court Sonitpur, Tezpur for keeping in abeyance the Land Grabbing case No. 10/2019 till disposal of T.S.No. 29/19 pending before the Learned Civil Judge, which was however rejected by the learned Special Court Sonitpur, Tezpur in the impugned order dated 05.01.2022.

5. The learned Special Court Sonitpur, Tezpur in the impugned order dated 05.01.2022 while rejecting the prayer of the petitioners, held that as per Section 8(4) of Assam Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 2010, notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, any case in respect of alleged act of land grabbing or determination of questions of title and ownership to or lawful possession of, any land grabbed, under this act, shall, subject to provisions of this Act, be triable in the Special Tribunal provided that if in the opinion of Special Tribunal, any application filed before it is prima facie frivolous or vexatious, it shall reject such application without any further enquiry. That section 12 of the Act also provides that any case pending before any court or other authority immediately before coming into force of this Act which involves any act of land grabbing shall stand transferred to the Special Tribunal within whose jurisdiction the alleged grabbed land is situated. Even though section 12 is not applicable in the present case but