HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE SAMUDRALA GOVINDARAJULU CRIMINAL PETITION No.4051 OF 2009 ORDER: The petitioners 1 and 2/A.1 and A.2 are accused of offences punishable under Sections 447, 427, 506 IPC and Sections 4 and 5 of the Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 (in short, the Act’) in C.C.No.20 of 2007. The petitioners are questioning framing of charges by the Principal Junior Civil Judge-cum-Judicial Magistrate of First Class for Trial of Cases under the A.P. Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982, Ranga Reddy District at Lalbahadur Nagar. The lower Court framed the charges against the petitioners on 20.02.2009. The only contention urged by the petitioners’ counsel in this petition is that the charge sheet as well as charges framed by the lower Court are not sustainable in law as there was no sanction for prosecution. Section 12 of the Act reads as under: Sanction for prosecution of offence under the Act:- No Court other than the Special Court shall take cognizance of an offence punishable under this Act, except with the previous sanction of the Special Tribunal which sanction shall be accorded having regard to the circumstances of each case. As per Section 12, the lower Court should not have taken cognizance of the case for offences punishable under the Act since there was no previous sanction of the Special Tribunal for the same. Factually, there is no dispute that there is no sanction accorded by the Special Tribunal for prosecution of A.1 and A.2 for the offences under the Act. In the absence of such sanction, charges framed by the lower Court under Sections 4 and 5 of the Act are not sustainable. In the result, the petition is partly allowed quashing charge Nos.3 and 4 dated 20.02.2009 framed by the lower Court for offences under Sections 4 and 5 of the Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982. The petition in other respects is partly dismissed. SAMUDRALA GOVINDARAJULU,J Date:20.08.2010 usd