The house of Justice (retired) Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee that has been auctioned off following a Supreme Court ruling

The state government will have to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court within four weeks stating whether it has framed guidelines on the allotment of land from the chief minister’s discretionary quota.

The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia passed the order on a petition filed by lawyer Joydeep Mukherjee, challenging such allotments since 1977.

The allotments Mukherjee has referred to were made during the tenure of Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as chief minister.

“The state will file an affidavit within four weeks indicating the number of plots which have not been allotted from the CM’s quota and whether there are any guidelines or norms,” Chief Justice Kapadia said.

The bench turned down Mukherjee’s plea to set up a committee to look into earlier allotments from the quota and recover the market value of the plots from the beneficiaries.

“We are not going to interfere with the allotments already made but we can set guidelines for the future,” Chief Justice Kapadia said, when Mukherjee drew his attention to a recent controversial allotment to former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly.

The allotment to Ganguly has been challenged in the Supreme Court, pointed out Mukherjee, who had alleged that at least 2,000 Salt Lake plots had been distributed from the discretionary quota in violation of rules.

The chief justice at that point sought to know from the state whether allotments from the quota were governed by any criterion.

On November 19, 2004, an apex court bench had set aside the allotment of a plot to retired Calcutta High Court judge Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee.

The court had even directed that the 3.5-cottah plot in FD block, and the two-storey house the former judge had built on it, be auctioned off and the money deposited with the government.

The court then had refused to look into other allotments, saying that such refusal should not be construed as an approval of the state’s policy on discretionary allotment.

On Monday, the bench headed by Chief Justice Kapadia referred to the 2004 ruling and asked the Bengal government whether it had framed allotment norms or guidelines since.

Justice (retired) Banerjee refused to comment on Monday’s ruling. “I should not make any comment on the issue. Some people had advised me to add myself as a party to the case but I refused.”

Address: FD 429, Salt Lake
Plot: 3.5 cottah
House: Two-storey
Apex court order to auction off the plot and the house: Nov. 19, 2004
Property auctioned off: Feb. 4, 2006