Calcutta High Court on Thursday, in an unprecedented move, directed the flat owners of a housing estate on Maniktala Main Road to pay their water tax dues at once or have their lines snapped.

Purbasha Housing Complex, with 664 flats, owes the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) Rs 22 lakh in water bills, making it the city’s largest defaulter.

Justice Girish Gupta on Thursday gave the CMC licence to take action in accordance with law, including disconnection of the water supply, to claim its dues.

Justice Girish Gupta’s order is the first instance of the high court sanctioning the disconnection of water supply to a residential complex for non-payment of water charges.

On March 16, 2009, after a seven-year legal battle, the division bench of Justice Asim Banerjee and Justice Prosenjit Mondal had upheld the CMC’s right to snap water lines to realise outstanding property tax as “constitutional”.

Thursday’s order followed a petition by the residents of Purbasha Housing challenging the legality of the CMC notification urging the complex to cough up its dues or face disconnection of metered supply of filtered water.

Welcoming the verdict, mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said: “It is unfortunate if citizens don’t agree to pay a paltry sum of 0.7 paise per litre of filtered water.”

Addresses in Calcutta with metered connection must pay the CMC Rs 7 per kilo litre and those with commercial ferrules Rs 10,600 to Rs 32,000 annually, but those with residential ferrules need to pay nothing for water supply.

Since the water of deep tubewells is hard and not fit for drinking, housing complexes, commercial establishments and government institutions around the city depend on filtered surface water from the CMC for a fee.

The high court ordered Purbasha to clear dues, amounting to Rs 34 lakh, at an earlier agreed rate of Rs 5 per kilolitre. The housing society has already paid Rs 12 lakh to the CMC, so Rs 22 lakh is what it must pay up in a hurry or face the prospect of going dry.