Patna: Police in Bihar will no longer intervene in land disputes beyond maintaining law and order, following a state government order that comes into force on February 1. The deputy chief minister, Vijay Kumar Sinha, said the move was aimed at ending what he described as arbitrary police actions in civil and revenue matters.
Sinha, who also holds the revenue and land reforms portfolio, announced the decision on Thursday. A joint order has since been issued by the additional chief secretary of the home department, Arvind Kumar Chaudhary, and the principal secretary of the revenue and land reforms department, C K, formalising the new policy.
Under the order, police officers will be barred from facilitating possession of land, overseeing construction activity or helping to erect boundary walls unless there is a clear directive from a competent authority. Their role in land-related disputes will be confined strictly to maintaining peace and preventing breaches of law and order.
“Arbitrary actions by police stations in the name of land disputes will not be tolerated,” Sinha said. “No one will be intimidated or threatened under the guise of police intervention. Land disputes are matters for the revenue administration and the courts.”
He said police intervention had often gone beyond its legal remit, with officers stepping into civil disputes under the pretext of maintaining order. “This will not be allowed at any cost,” he added.
The joint order lays down detailed procedural guidelines. On receiving information about a land dispute, the concerned police station must make a separate and clear entry in the station diary, recording the names and addresses of both parties, the nature of the dispute, full details of the land involved and a brief note on the initial police action. The entry must also specify which revenue court has jurisdiction over the matter.
Police station in-charges will be required to share written information about every land dispute with the local circle officer, either in hard copy, by email or through the official departmental portal.
To speed up resolution, the order mandates weekly coordination meetings between circle officers and police station in-charges every Saturday at the circle office. Updates on the progress of cases discussed in these meetings will be uploaded to the departmental portal. If the station in-charge is unavailable, the additional in-charge must attend.
The government clarified that police powers under sections 107 and 116 of the Code of Criminal Procedure — now reflected in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita — will continue as before, but warned against their misuse to interfere unnecessarily in land disputes.
