PANKAJ KUMAR JAISWAL,JJ. - (1.) Land is the most valuable and scarce natural resource available on this planet to the mankind. With growing population, this natural resource is becoming more and more scarce and costly. There is a tendency to grab this scarce natural resource by unscrupulous and greedy people including land mafias. People are encroaching and forcibly occupying the land of others and the land belonging to State and other State authorities. If law enforcement agencies take action against the land grabbers, such actions are always met with several hurdles including legal. Land grabbers try every trick to prevent the authorities from getting them evicted. They make all sorts of allegations against an authority which proposes legal action against them. However, it is the responsibility and bounden duty of the law enforcing agencies to prevent the unauthorised use, occupation and possession of this natural scarce resource. The might of these people has to be dealt with by the authorities with a stern hand.
(2.) Many at times people who illegally occupy the scarce natural resource i.e. land get patronage from the executive and political class. The vested interests allow the encroachment over the public utility and land vested in the State or State authorities by the unscrupulous people. When an authority initiates an action to remove the encroachment from the land, such an authority has to meet the challenges not only from the land grabbers but also from the political and executive class. Sometime such an authority/ officer has to face the wrath of the political masters and executive class who have vested interests in the land in question. When the land-grabbers do not succeed to prevent the authority from taking action against them, they approach the court and make all sorts of allegations against the authority/officer concerned.
(3.) The State is the trustee of all natural resources which, by nature are made for public use and enjoyment. The State as a trustee is under the legal duty to protect the natural resources. Therefore, if a State authority takes an action to protect a natural resource such as land and remove the encroachers from the land, unless the person coming before the court has an absolute clear and unambiguous right, title over the land, the action of the authority should not be viewed with the prism of suspicion. The allegations of mala fide against the authority proposing an action against the encroachers of the land should not be considered unless such a person has undeniable right, title and interest over the land.;