High Court doubles petitioner’s fine for failing to pay in due time

a: Taking a stricter stance against unauthorised construction following the Garden Reach incident which resulted in death of 10 people and left 17 injured, the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday refused to extend the time for payment of cost imposed on a petitioner seeking regularisation of an unauthorised construction.

Considering the petitioner failed to pay the cost imposed in the given time period, March 18, Justice Amrita Sinha doubled the cost to Rs 2 lakh and directed that in case the petitioner fails to pay the same within March 22, the cost will be further enhanced.

“The court cannot keep its eyes shut. The persons involved with unauthorised constructions should be given a good lesson so that unauthorised construction can be curbed to some extent,” Justice Sinha observed. The petitioner informed the Single Bench that an appeal was made against the Single Bench order in the Division Bench and accordingly they had sought for the time of payment of cost to be extended. The appeal in the Division Bench is yet to be heard.

On Tuesday, a lawyer had approached Justice Amrita Sinha’s bench seeking to be heard on demolition order passed wherein the concerned party was not made party to the case. During the mentioning, Justice Sinha refused to interfere and stated: “Court is not giving you any leave in any demolition matters…Let human lives be saved.” Similarly, in two other demolitions of unauthorised construction matters, Justice Sinha refused to interfere.

On Sunday night, an under-construction multi-storey building collapsed on the nearby shanty in Garden Reach area of Ward 134 of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). Ten people, including two women, died and 17 were injured. Following the incident, KMC has instructed its Building department to ascertain the cause of collapse and conduct a survey to determine the number of illegal constructions within the civic body area so that action can be taken against these.