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| The plot in CA block that has been allotted to Sourav Ganguly to set up a school. A Telegraph picture |
The high court on Monday dismissed five petitions filed by Salt Lake residents challenging the manner in which the state government had handed over a plot in CA block to Sourav Ganguly to set up a school.
The division bench of Chief Justice M.S. Shah and Justice P.C. Ghosh, however, asked the former national cricket captain to make an additional payment of Rs 43 lakh to the government for the 62-cottah plot.
The bench, while disposing of the petitions filed by a resident and four resident associations, held that the process adopted by the state to hand over the plot to Sourav was not arbitrary.
The state urban development department had in 2007 allotted a 50-cottah plot in Salt Lake BF block to Sourav for setting up the school against a payment of Rs 6 lakh (Rs 12,000 per cottah).
“The state had published an advertisement in newspapers before handing over the plot to Sourav. There were 12 applicants but the former Indian cricket skipper was chosen over the others. After receiving the plot, Sourav apparently came to know that a 62-cottah plot in CA Block was lying vacant. He then requested the urban development minister to allot him the CA plot instead of the one in BF block. The government did so without publishing any advertisement for the CA plot,” said Arunava Ghosh, the lawyer who represented one of the petitioners.
According to the lawyer, the high court had in an earlier order asked the government to publish advertisements seeking applications before allotting plots in Salt Lake. “The government had clearly violated a court order while handing over the CA plot to Sourav,” Ghosh said.
The petitioners had also submitted that the CA plot was given to Sourav at a rate lower than what the government had fixed. “Sourav had paid Rs 12,000 per cottah in 2007 for the BF plot. The CA plot was handed over to him in October 2008, after the government had raised the Salt Lake land rate to Rs 1 lakh per cottah. But Sourav paid only Rs 13 lakh extra, instead of Rs 56 lakh, for the new plot,” said Ghosh.
The bench then asked Sourav to pay the remaining Rs 43 lakh. It also held that the government had the right to allot a plot in exchange for another.
