- Calcutta High Court said: Unauthorised construction
- Builder told The Telegraph: Have sanction for the first two floors
- Residents showed: Receipts for payment of mutation fee and property tax, issued by the Howrah Municipal Corporation
- Howrah Municipal Corporation said: Mutation is merely an acknowledgement that we provide basic civic amenities
A visit to a five-storey Howrah building whose evacuation and demolition Calcutta High Court has ordered showed how deep the problem of illegal construction runs.
On Wednesday, a single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha ordered the builder to pay Rs 1 crore by March 28. The judge rejected an appeal from a section of the flat owners, seeking a year to vacate the premises at 5/8/2 Kali Prasad Chakraborty Lane in Howrah’s Kadamtala.
“As the Court is concerned about the wellbeing of the occupants who may have been duped to purchase the unauthorised constructions, accordingly, the Court is not inclined to grant more than three months’ time for vacating the subject construction so that the same may be demolished immediately thereafter,” the order said.
This newspaper spoke to the owners of multiple apartments on Thursday. They pleaded helplessness, saying they had spent their lives’ savings and borrowed money to buy an accommodation.
But they knew when they were buying the flats that the builder had the sanction for only the first two floors, if at all.
“He had promised that the sanction for the remaining floors would be granted soon after the civic polls in Howrah,” said an owner of a flat on the third floor.
The civic polls in Howrah were last held in December 2012.
Two flat owners showed a couple of receipts — for payment of the mutation fee and the property tax — issued by the Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC).
“If the building is illegal, why is the civic body taking money from us for mutation?” asked one of them, a 54-year-old man who supplies crockery to caterers. He traces his roots to a village in Hooghly and shifted base to Howrah more than 10 years ago.
Sujoy Chakravarty, chairperson of the board of administrators of the HMC, said mutation was not legitimising unauthorised construction.
“Mutation is by no means acknowledgement of ownership. Neither are we legitimising illegal construction. Our stand is humanitarian. We cannot deny basic amenities like water, drainage and sewerage,” Chakravarty told this newspaper.
“The builder is responsible (for the illegal action). The flat owners, knowingly or unknowingly, have landed in trouble. But we cannot deny anyone these basic services,” he said.
One flat owner said he has been living in the flat since June 2022. He lives in a third-floor two-bedroom apartment with an area of less than 600sqft.
The flat cost him around Rs 18 lakh. He had to borrow a part of the money from a private lender.
“I used to live in a rented accommodation. I decided to pay EMI instead of the monthly rent. Now, I don’t know what to do,” said the man, who lives with his wife and son.
Another flat owner, a greengrocer, said he had to sell his ancestral land and take a loan against his LIC policies to buy the apartment.
“We had serious apprehensions because the building was not sanctioned. But the promoter told us he would sort everything out once the Howrah civic polls were over,” said a woman, who owns a third-floor flat.
When this newspaper called the builder on Thursday morning, he said he was unwell and would call back. He did not. Neither did he take calls later in the day.
The builder had told this newspaper on Wednesday that he had sanctions for the first two floors.
He has a flat on the fourth floor of the building. When The Telegraph visited the flat, his wife said he was not home.
Almost every flat owner said they hoped the court directed the builder to provide an alternative accommodation to them.
Justice Sinha’s Wednesday order said the builder must “deposit a sum of Rs 1 crore in the office of the Registrar General of this Court by way of Banker’s Draft by 28th March, 2024”.
“A receipt showing deposit of the aforesaid amount shall be placed before this court on 3rd April, 2024. In the event, the aforesaid draft is not deposited, then serious consequences will follow.
“The aforesaid amount is being kept as security for the time being and the manner as to how the money will be utilised shall be decided later,” the order said.
