A CMC stop-work notice could not stop demolition of Dunlop House a few weeks ago. A Telegraph picture

After being battered by demolition workers for the past few months and till 6 pm on Wednesday, only the bare bones of Dunlop House, at 57B, Mirza Ghalib Street, remain. The sledgehammer fell silent when news came in that the Supreme Court had restrained till September 25 current owner Pataka Industries from demolishing the building to construct a shopping mall on the 47-cottah plot.

The apex court bench headed by Justice B.N. Agarwal acted on the petition filed by the Kolkata International Foundation for Arts, Literature and Culture, alleging that the owners were hurriedly destroying the building as it was in the process of being declared ‘heritage’.

Pataka Industries had bought Dunlop House for Rs 10.75 crore in April 2005. The building of 1920’s vintage, which the Intach handbook on heritage structures had listed as Grade B, was never taken into account by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s heritage committee.

Pataka Industries had ignored the CMC’s stop-work notice and continued to destroy Dunlop House.

Calcutta High Court had, last Friday, dismissed a petition by Pawan Ruia, who has taken over Dunlop, to stop Dunlop House from being razed. The division bench had rapped Ruia for being more concerned about a building than the workers of Dunlop at its Sahagunj factory.

Why such a surge to save an old office building off Park Street? “I am ready to pay the market rate to get back that property. We have the original drawing of the building and will reconstruct the same. There is a lot of history associated with that building and we want to restore that,” Ruia had said in the past.

Kolkata International Foundation for Arts, Literature and Culture — chaired by Sunil Gangopadhyay and boasting the likes of Jogen Chowdhury and Ganesh Haloi — submitted in its petition to the Supreme Court that Dunlop Building had all the hallmarks of a colonial architectural style and a clock at the corner.

Among other things, the trust has sought a direction to the state government and the CMC to ensure that Dunlop House was not demolished and declared a heritage building. The petitioner said the CMC Act had been amended in 1997 to ensure preservation and conservation of heritage buildings. Though the corporation had issued a notice, the owners got it stayed as the building was yet to be declared a heritage structure.

Taking note of the matter, the apex court posted the petition for hearing on September 25 and stayed demolition till further orders.