Cops' SOP To Deal With Land Squabbles

The Cyberabad Police are preparing a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for fair enquiries into the large numbers of complaints involving land-related disputes.

According to Cyberabad Commissioner C V Anand, almost all the police stations of the Cyberabad Commissionerate are receiving a large number of complaints involving disputes related to land and other properties on a daily basis.

"As is known, due to the IT boom, the values of land in the Cyberabad area increased phenomenally in the last 15 years," he said.

"In the absence of standard title registration schemes in the country, and because of the confusion over multiple land ownership records in Rangareddy district, police officers are a confused lot, and do not know how to deal with these disputes, and some of them are taking advantage of grey areas. On the other hand, land-grabbers also take advantage of loopholes in the system, and bring about a lot of grief to genuine investors. For conduct of a fair enquiry and to avoid such allegations, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been prepared, which will guide the Investigating Officers on proper lines," the Commissioner said.

As many as 21 types of situations in which police officers receive complaints about land disputes have been identified, after detailed seminars, and based on feedback of all 450 police officers of the ranks of SI and above in Cyberabad in the presence of Civil, Criminal and Revenue Law experts.

The main objectives of this SOP include "giving a standardized frame of reference and set of instructions to police officers when dealing with land disputes"; "to reduce the discretion of individual police officers when dealing with such cases" (which may otherwise lead to the favouring of a certain party to the conflict); and "to avoid giving the police department a bad name" by way of its involvement beyond the legal limits.

Investigating officers of Cyberabad have been instructed to follow the SOP scrupulously while dealing with land-related cases. Any deviation in this regard will be viewed seriously, and will be dealt with accordingly, Anand said.

This SOP has been submitted to the DGP's office and to the government for perusal/study. (INN)