THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY Writ Petition No.24426 of 2011 Dated 30th August, 2011 Between: Yarlagadda Chitrasenu …Petitioner And The State of A.P., rep.by its Principal Secretary, Revenue Department, Secretariat Buildings, Hyderabad and others …Respondents Counsel for the petitioner: Sri Babuji Tenneti Counsel for respondent Nos.1, 2 & 4: AGP for Revenue Counsel for respondent Nos.3, 5 & 6: AGP for Irrigation & CAD The Court made the following: ORDER: This writ petition is filed for a mandamus to declare the action of respondent No.6 in dispossessing the petitioner along with 25 other families as illegal and arbitrary. I have heard Sri Babuji Tenneti, learned counsel for the petitioner, and the learned Assistant Government Pleaders for Revenue and Irrigation & CAD. The petitioner claims to be in possession of the land, which admittedly belongs to the Irrigation Department and situated at the bank of Eerlakodu drain, Skinnerapuram Village, Attili Mandal, West Godavari District, for more than 30 years. The petitioner also claimed that besides him, there are 29 other families, which were also in occupation of the land belonging to the Irrigation Department. Recently respondent No.6 has removed the structure raised by the petitioner and 27 others. The main grievance of the petitioner is that respondent No.6 has indulged in invidious discrimination by permitting two other persons by name, Pennada Subba Rao and Chennam Ram Krishna Rao @ Ram Babu, to remain in possession of the Government land. Having carefully considered this submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner, I am of the opinion that no exception can be taken to the action of respondent No.6 in clearing the Government land by removing the structures raised by the petitioner and others unauthorisedly. Even if respondent No.6 has spared the above two persons from a similar action, the same does not cloth the petitioner with any right on the ground of discrimination. The law is well settled that equality cannot be applied when it arises out of illegality (see General Manager, Uttaranchal Jal Sansthan v. Laxmi Devi and others[1], State of Bihar v. Upendra Narayan Singh and others[2] and State of Punjab and another v. Surjit Singh and others[3]). For the above-mentioned reasons, I do not find any merit in this writ petition and the same is accordingly dismissed. However, before parting with this case, it is necessary to point out that respondent No.6 cannot maintain different standards to the similarly situated persons. If the above-mentioned two persons, namely, Pennada Subba Rao and Chennam Ram Krishna Rao @ Ram Babu, are also in occupation of the Government land, there can be no reason why a different treatment is meted out to them. Respondent No.6 is, therefore, directed to ensure that if those two persons are in occupation of the Government land, they are also evicted, after removal of the structure, if any, raised by them, by following due process of law. As a sequel to dismissal of the writ petition, W.P.M.P.No.29998 of 2011 is disposed of as infructuous. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 30th August, 2011 VGB [1] (2009) 7 SCC 205 [2] (2009) 5 SCC 65 [3] (2009) 9 SCC 514