The petrol pump that was sealed. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Feb. 11: The Bengal land and land revenue department has sealed a petrol pump owned by Englishbazar Municipality chairman and Congress leader Narendranath Tiwari on the ground that it has used up a portion of a vested plot adjacent to it.

Debabrata Roy Chowdhury, a resident of Raiganj in North Dinajpur, had obtained the licence of the only petrol pump of Assam Oil Company in Malda through a Scheduled Caste quota. He had entered into a joint venture with Tiwari, who bought the plot a year ago, near Gourbongo railway station. The land is on NH 34, hardly 8km from here.

Sources in the land reforms department said the plot was mired in controversy right from the beginning because its entry points lay on the vested or government-owned land. Tiwari, the sources said, should have sought government permission to use the vested plot facing NH34 for making it the gateway to his petrol pump.

Tiwari claimed that he had bought the 1.5 bigha from a realtor in Malda town. He, however, admitted that entry to the petrol pump was through vested land.

“Construction has been stopped for the time being. We have started negotiating with the land department. I am hopeful that the dispute will be settled soon,” the Congress leader said.

District land revenue officer Amiya Biswas alleged that a sharecropper who used to work on the vested land had been evicted by the owners of the petrol pump.

Not only that, Biswas said, a wetland in the area too has been filled up. Tiwari was fined Rs 27,000 after the block land and land revenue officer (BLRO) submitted his inquiry report.

“The landowner has been told that unless he gives our department an equal portion of land (around 5 decimal), construction would remain suspended,” Biswas said.

Without naming his bete noire, the Congress MLA from Englishbazar Krishnendu Chowdhury, Tiwari said some of his colleagues in the party were masterminding the conspiracy against him.