Calcutta HC orders halt in demolition of Abhishek Banerjee’s office

The Calcutta High Court on Sunday ordered status quo on the demolition of the Diamond Harbour constituency office of TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district. Holding a special sitting, Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury directed the state authorities not to carry out any further demolition of the building at Amtala till the matter is taken up for hearing again or till the end of July, whichever is earlier.

The order came on a petition filed by Leaps and Bounds Private Limited.

Banerjee is the CEO of ‘Leaps and Bounds’, according to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in connection with a different matter.

Directing that status quo be maintained with regard to the demolition of the five-storey building on Diamond Harbour Road, the court said the matter would be heard by the regular bench.

The court, however, declined to grant relief on the petitioner’s plea alleging that political workers and miscreants had looted documents from the office while the police remained mute spectators, observing that the petition did not disclose that any complaint had been lodged with the police.

The South 24 Parganas district administration began demolishing the TMC MP’s party office on Saturday after finding it was allegedly constructed without an approved building plan and in violation of applicable rules, according to a senior official.

Stating that the building was his constituency office, the Diamond Harbour MP claimed that the office was built legally on purchased land and after obtaining requisite permissions.

The petitioner’s advocate, Kishore Dutta, stated before the court that neither a copy of the complaint on the basis of which the demolition was ordered nor the demolition order itself had been furnished to his client.

He argued that the petitioner has a right to object to the complaint and a right to be heard, especially when a demolition order was being passed. Advocate General Surojit Nath Mitra, appearing for the West Bengal government, submitted that the petitioner had been aware of the demolition proceedings through the issuance of notice.

He further argued that the petitioner had failed to demonstrate that the construction was in accordance with a sanctioned building plan issued by the South 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad.