A court in Birbhum is learnt to have stayed the eviction notice served to the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen by the Visva Bharati University (VBU).
The Central university had issued an order to Sen asking him to vacate 13 decimals of land on which his ancestral house ‘Pratichi’ is built, which according to the university is under “illegal occupation”. The notice had asked him to vacate it within 15 days.
However, it was learnt that the district judge Sudeshna De (Chatterjee) also directed that the stay on the eviction notice will be in force till the disposal of the main case related to the ownership of the plot in the Santiniketan campus of the central university.
The matter will come up for hearing again on September 16, and till then there will be a stay on the eviction notice.
The Visva Bharati University, however, is likely to approach the Calcutta High Court to challenge this decision. Earlier, Amartya Sen had moved the High Court which had granted him an interim stay against a move by the VBU till the court in Suri decides on the matter. Professor Sen had maintained that Rathindranath Tagore had given 1.38 acres of land on a lease of 99 years to his father Ashutosh Sen in October 1943.
Sen has been extended immense support by the state’s ruling party and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who met Sen early this year and handed over to him certain documents regarding the land.
She had opined that Sen was being targeted by the BJP because he often criticises their ideology. She condemned such “harassment” of a Nobel Laureate. Banerjee had also assured him of all help from the state government.