Chowringhee: The fire and emergency services department has written to the "owner" of the Jeevan Sudha building and the "occupier" of its three fire-ravaged floors, asking about the fire-safety measures they had undertaken.

Three floors of the Chowringhee highrise - 16th, 17th and 18th - were engulfed in flames on Thursday morning. All three floors were gutted but there was no casualty as the offices located in the building were closed because of Diwali.

While the building is owned by the LIC, the three blaze-hit floors housed the back office of the State Bank of India's foreign exchange division. The fire broke out in the server room on the 16th floor a little after 10am and spread to the other two floors.

Asked about the content of the letter, Jag Mohan, the director-general of the fire and emergency services, told Metro: "We would like to know from the building owner and the occupier of the floors about their maintenance schedule, the kind of training imparted to the personnel who are supposed to handle fire-fighting equipment and whether all safety norms were in place. We hope to get their response by next week."

The fire services department's move to seek an explanation from both the owner and occupier of the Jeevan Sudha building is not usual going by the standard practise followed in an incident of outbreak of fire in a commercial building with several tenants.

Usually after fire has been doused, an officer of the department would usually lodge a complaint with the local police station under 11J, 11C and 11L of the West Bengal Fire Services Act, 1950 against the building-owner.

"This complaint by the fire department sets the stage for a police probe under section 285 and 120B of the IPC that deals with negligent conduct with respect to fire or combustible matter and criminal conspiracy respectively.

In case of all major incidents of fire in Calcutta including the AMRI fire in December 2011 this has been the norm.

But with Jeevan Sudha, the fire services department didn't lodge a complaint with the local Shakespeare Sarani police station even 24-hours after the fire outbreak.

"It's not mandatory to lodge a complaint immediately," Mohan said. "We will go through what each of the two - owner and occupier of the building and its three floors - have to say and then pit it against our findings. If there is a lacunae, we will proceed according to law."

A section of officers from the foreign exchange division have maintained fire-fighting arrangements were in place though a large number of employees of other offices housed in Jeevan Sudha building have claimed otherwise.

Many who spoke to Metro on Thursday said they had never participated in any fire drills even though notices would be sent about such exercises. What's worse, fire fighters had to physically lift pipes to the 16th floor before starting their operations, loosing out on crucial time in the process.

"There aren't any fire sprinklers here. This building is quite old. So they aren't any moden gadgets," said B G Chakrabarty, administrator of the Jeevan Sudha building. "But all other things are in place."

Fire tenders had told this newspaper on Thursday that they didn't have enough water pressure to fight the leaping flames till they brought in pumps. Hydraulic ladders that were brought in couldn't work because there weren't enough space. Illegal makeshift constructions had come in the way.