KMC to pay Rs 1L fine, submit affidavit on no. of water bodies to HC

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Monday reprimanded the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) for not submitting the affidavit on the number of water bodies and the action taken by the corporation if there is encroachment or illegal conversion of water bodies. The KMC was further asked to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh to the West Bengal State Legal Services Authority.

Truncated report was filed at various stages, the Court noted, and as per the last order, the corporation was supposed to file the report in the form of an affidavit which was not filed by them. The matter was heard by the Division Bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya.

“Though it has been submitted repeatedly by the KMC that action has been initiated to identify the water body and whenever there was an encroachment action was initiated, we are unable to persuade ourselves to accept such a stand taken by KMC as from the year 2021 onwards.

No concrete action appears to have been taken by the KMC for evicting the encroachers or demolishing the structures which have been illegally put up in water bodies or lands which were initially water bodies but were illegally converted for other purposes and constructions have been put up. Thus, we safely conclude that KMC has been dragging the matter for reasons best known,” the Division Bench observed. The advocate appearing for KMC, submitted that inspection has been carried out and the report will be submitted at the next hearing date in the form of interim report.

Directing KMC to file a report, the Court directed that the report should clearly state the number of water bodies which are within its jurisdiction, the action taken in case of encroachment or illegal conversion of water bodies.