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        During the last one year there have been several reports relating to alleged illegal grabbing of valuable private and Government lands by several functionaries of the Revenue Department in different parts of the State. Many Village Administrative Officers, Revenue Inspectors, Deputy Tahsildars, Tahsildars and Deputy Collectors have come to adverse notice for their illegal and corrupt practices in respect of issues and matters relating to land administration.

        Many of these Government functionaries resort to all kinds of malpractices like fabrication of existing Government records, criminal creation of fake Government Certificates and records mainly on account of the soaring prices of urban lands in the outlying areas of Chennai and many other cities.

        A classic instance in point is the charge sheet in case number 321/2002 filed by the CB-CID police against a Village Administrative Officer A R Sridharan, L.Ameer and others of Alandur for forgery and fabrication of revenue records solely for the unlawful gain of unearned property.

        In the charge sheet filed by the CB-CID Police in a Court of Law, these facts have been brought to light. In respect of one M/s.VAK Engineering Pvt. Ltd , Chennai , A R Sridharan, Village Administrative Officer of Adambakkam Village, Tambaram Taluk, Kancheepuram District, using his official authority at his level, manipulated Government accounts and forged documents to illegally claim possession of 3.80 acres of land in T.S.No.138 of Adambakkam Village, Tambaram Taluk, Kancheepuram District belonging to the said Company.

        Likewise, L Ameer and others in criminal collaboration with A R Sridharan fabricated the concerned Government documents to illegally claim 3.60 acres of land in T.S. No.122 of Adambakkam Village, Tambaram Taluk, Kancheepuram District. Further in Paimash N0.716, corresponding to Resurvey No.20/2 in the same Village, L Ameer has sold superstructures based on false claims and documents. A criminal case has been filed by the CB-CID Police under Sections 120-B read with Sections 465, 466,467,471,420,167 and 109 of the Indian Penal Court (IPC) against A R Sridharan, L Ameer and others and this case is now pending in the Court of Judicial Magistrate-II, Poonamallee.

        Members of the public have also complained that Sridharan and his father Late A P Rajagopal Pillai have been playing the mischievous game of illicit grabbing of public land not legally belonging to them by tampering with official Government records in their favour. One such instance relates to 17 cents of public land belonging to the New Colony Welfare Association of Adambakkam Village, Tambaram Taluk, Kancheepuram District.

        Sridharan succeeded in getting a favourable order from one of the lower Civil Courts based on manipulated documents taking advantage of his official position as VAO. A second appeal against this order filed by New Colony Welfare Association is still pending in the Madras High Court. Government servants, particularly at the cutting edge level of Village Administrative Officers who forge Government documents and fabricate public records with the criminal intent of grabbing public lands should not be allowed to go unpunished either by Government or by Courts of Law.

        What ought to be a matter of great public concern is that many of these Government servants have been very successful in misleading courts of law into passing orders in their favour even though they relied upon the evidence of completely forged or fabricated existing Government records and documents or new fake documents created in their own favour. This is a poor reflection on our existing structures of law and systems of Justice.

        Public are completely bewildered by the utter helplessness of the duly constituted Courts of Law in dealing with such undesirable criminal elements in revenue administration. There is a widespread public belief that all is not well in the lower echelons of the judiciary in the State. Recently the Chief Justice of India made an observation to the effect that there is widespread corruption in the lower echelons of the judiciary in the country as a whole. If we have to keep and preserve our democracy, then there must be one commandment: 'Thou shall not ration justice'. Justice is not a cloistered virtue; she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken, comments of very ordinary men like me.

        I am of the view that a law is not mere theory, but living force. And hence it is the justice which, in one hand, holds the scales, in which she weighs the RIGHT, carries in the other the sword with which she executes it. The sword without the scales is brute force, the scales without the sword is the impotence of law. The scales and the sword BELONG TOGETHER, and the state of the law is perfect, only in a situation where the power with which justice carries the sword is equalled by the skill with which she holds the scales. The fundamental wisdom encapsulated here and endorsed for nearly a thousand years by great jurists in all countries of the world seems to have been completely overlooked if not bypassed by many of the judicial officers in the lower echelons of the judiciary in Tamilndu today.

        What makes the matters worse is the not so becoming judicial neutrality between the fire brigade and the fire maintained by the High Court of Madras in dealing with marked judicial officers of questionable integrity. I am only reflecting the unspoken but strongly felt feelings among the public about the difficulties they have to face in dealing with certain subordinate civil courts in Tamilnadu. I would like to invite the kind attention of all the Judicial Officers to the inspiring words of Hon'ble Justice Frankfurter, former Chief Justice of the Federal Court in U.S.A. 'What becomes decisive to a Justice's functioning on the Court in the large area within which his individuality moves is his general attitude towards law, the habits of mind he has formed or is capable of unforming, his capacity for detachment, his temperament or training for putting his passion behind his judgement instead of in front of it. The attitudes and qualities which I am groping to characterize are ingredients of what compendiously might be called dominating humility'.

        I would like to emphasise that while constitutional exercise of power by the executive and legislative branches of the Government is subject to judicial review and restraint, the only check upon Judiciary's own exercise of power is their own sense of self-restraint.

        Many members of the public are agitated about the fact that unscrupulous Government Servants are able to fabricate records and get justice in their favour through courts of law. This situation can be corrected only if all the District Collectors take immediate action to streamline all aspects of land administration. The only other public remedy is for the aggrieved members of the public to move the Madras High Court through a public interest petition. I am not very sure whether the Madras High Court can view this article itself as the basis for a public interest petition in the larger interest of public equity and natural justice.