Held, Insofar as the State of Tamil Nadu is concerned, it is an admitted position that there is no specific enactment and/or Act to deal with land grabbing cases, like Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 and the Anti-Land Grabbing Special Cells have been formed by G.O. No. 423 dated 28.07.2011 to exclusively deal with the 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 will be investigated by the Anti-Land Grabbing Special Cell. Even a dispute between two private persons which may be under the Specific Relief Act and/or Transfer of Property Act may be considered as a land grabbing case like in Criminal Appeal No. 275/2022 in which a Civil Suit was pending for specific performance which was dismissed for non-prosecution and thereafter the defendant filed a complaint/FIR for the offences under the IPC. Therefore, as such, it is rightly held and observed by the High Court that in absence of any specific guideline and/or definition of “land grabbing cases,” such powers can be abused or misused and such powers can be said to be exercised arbitrarily. Therefore, the High Court has rightly set aside G.O. No. 423 dated 28.07.2011 with liberty to the State Government to bring any appropriate legislation on the lines of A.P. Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 or better legislations after defining and/or providing the guidelines as to which offences can be said to be “land grabbing cases”. Therefore, the impugned judgment(s) and order(s) passed by the High Court does/do not call for any interference by this Court.
Vague definitions and classification in creation of offence(s) and conferment of unguided power to investigate the same, that too by government order rather than legislation is sufficient for invalidation of the same.
[State of T.N. v. R. Thamaraiselvam, (2023) 7 SCC 251]