About 15 days ago, the Calcutta Municipal Corporation ordered Pataka Industries, which owns Dunlop House, to stop demolishing the building. But the photograph taken on Friday morning tells another story. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay held out the assurance on Wednesday that a stop-work notice had been sent to the current owners of Dunlop House, one of the best-known office buildings at 57B, Mirza Ghalib Street, located prominently opposite Karnani Mansion, at the head of Royd Street.

The next day, the director-general of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) confirmed that a stop-work notice had been slapped on the current Dunlop House owner, Pataka Industries, which manufactures Pataka bidis, about 15 days before.

Nearly a month ago, after it became known that Dunlop House was being demolished, the CMC suddenly woke up to the fact that this significant example of corporate architecture constructed in the 1920s had not been included in its list of 1,365 heritage structures. Even mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya was not sure about the status of Dunlop House.

The CMC referred the matter to the heritage committee, which said that it would consider it. Intach and Public had written to the CMC and the Bengal governor against the demolition. The stop-work notice was sent thereafter.

Pataka Industries has gone to court over the issue and has petitioned the high court against the CMC’s notice.

But has the work really stopped? Residents of Karnani Mansion, who live opposite Dunlop House, vouch for the fact that it has not. One resident said: “Work did stop 10 to 12 days ago, but it resumed about three days ago. Because of the clanging in the background, the pigeons don’t come to peck on the parapet.” Anyway, little is left of the house.

According to Nilina Deblal, in her Intach handbook on the city’s built heritage, Dunlop House is a grade-B building of considerable historical and architectural significance. Pawan Ruia has taken over Dunlop to reopen its Sahagunj factory, but he is not the owner of its headquarters on Mirza Ghalib Street. It belongs to the Pataka group, which paid Rs 10.75 crore to acquire it. However, Ruia is keen on getting back Dunlop House, which he has described as a “heritage building”.

Mustak Hossain, who owns Pataka Industries, intends to build a shopping mall at this site.