Police protection for property possession denied absent executable decree; FIR alleging forcible entry and damage not quashed despite civil dispute background, as specific criminal acts require investigation.

ORDER :

L.VICTORIA GOWRI, J.

Preface:

1.These two Criminal Original Petitions, though couched in different forms of relief, arise out of a single and intensely contested dispute concerning possession over an item of immovable property. One petition seeks police protection to enable the petitioner to take possession of the property, while the other seeks quashment of the FIR registered when such attempt to take possession allegedly resulted in acts of intimidation, abuse and demolition.

2. The controversy demonstrates, yet again, the delicate boundary between civil adjudication relating to title and possession on the one hand, and criminal law invoked in the wake of physical confrontation on the other. The existence of civil proceedings does not by itself sterilise the criminal law. Equally, criminal law cannot be permitted to become an instrument to perpetuate a disputed possession or to settle civil scores. The task of the Court, therefore, is to discern whether the petitioner is entitled to police aid for recovery of possession and whether the criminal case registered against him is one that deserves to be interdicted at the threshold.

3. Since the factual matrix, the rival parties, and the competing claims substantially overlap, both petitions are taken up together and are disposed of by this common judgment.

Prayer in CrL. O.P.(MD) No.12341 of 2025:

4. This Criminal Original Petition has been filed under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, seeking a direction to the respondent police to provide appropriate police protection to the petitioner by considering his representations dated 23.06.2025 and 26.06.2025.

Prayer in CrL. O.P.(MD) No. 12893 of 2025:

5. This Criminal Original Petition has been filed under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, seeking to call for the records pertaining to Crime No.335 of 2025 on the file of the first respondent police and quash the same insofar as the petitioners are concerned.

The prosecution case in CrL. O.P.(MD) No.12893 of 2025:

6. The prosecution case, in essence, is that the second respondent / defacto complainant claims to have purchased the properties in Plot Nos.2 and 32 in Survey Nos.332/1A and 332/1B through an unregistered transaction from one Rajkumar as early as in the year 2008 and thereafter to have remained in possession thereof. According to him, he expended substantial sums for repairs and improvements and established a metal scrap business in the premises in the name and style of M/s. R.K. Metal.

7. It is alleged that after the death of the original owner Rajkumar, the first petitioner, claiming authority under a power of attorney allegedly executed by the legal heirs of the deceased, began asserting hostile rights over the property and attempted to evict the defacto complainant. This gave rise to civil litigation in the form of suits for permanent injunction in O.S.Nos.116 and 130 of 2024 on the file of the learned Additional District Munsif Court, Thirumangalam.

8. The further accusation is that on 25.06.2025, while the employees of the defacto complainant were present in the godown, the petitioners, along with others including one Adv