The high court has ordered an emergency inspection of the La Martiniere schools after a large chunk of ceiling in a building with heritage status crashed to the floor from a 40-foot height, raising serious safety concerns for the institution’s 6,000 students.

A vacation bench headed by Justice Tirthankar Ghosh on Friday directed the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the state heritage commission to jointly inspect the schools on Monday and submit a report by June 5. The court will then decide whether to allow immediate repairs before classes resume on June 17.

The incident occurred about a week back, during summer vacation, when a 10x3-foot section of ceiling fell in the boys’ school building. No one was injured, but school officials warn it could have been catastrophic had students been present.

“This is a question of the safety of the students and hence the urgency,” said Rauf Rahim, advocate for La Martiniere for Boys. “A large chunk crashed on the floor. This is an old building. It needs urgent repairs.”

The schools find themselves caught between pressing safety needs and heritage preservation requirements. As listed heritage buildings, any repairs require approval from the West Bengal Heritage Commission — a process that has created delays the schools say they cannot afford.

Permission dispute

The schools claim they have sought renovation permission from the heritage commission but received no response. However, the commission’s counsel disputed this in court, saying no such application had been received.

A heritage commission member told reporters the schools had actually requested delisting from the heritage register. “We promise them all support and ask them to do the repairs after engaging a conservation architect,” the member said.

The KMC has issued stop-work orders, alleging the schools undertook unauthorised renovations. A senior KMC official said the schools had done “a lot of renovation work without obtaining any permission from the heritage conservation committee”.

School secretary Supriyo Dhar denied these allegations, insisting they had only conducted necessary safety repairs, not construction or renovation work covered by the stop-work order.

Court intervention

The schools initially approached a single bench on Wednesday, but escalated
to the division bench on Friday seeking faster resolution.

Justice Ghosh ordered that two deputy chief engineer-rank KMC officers, one heritage commission representative, and a school official conduct the Monday inspection between noon and 3pm.

The case highlights ongoing tensions in Calcutta between preserving historical architecture and ensuring public safety.

La Martiniere, one of the city’s most prestigious educational institutions, has become a test case for balancing heritage conservation with practical safety needs.

With classes set to resume in just over two weeks, the court’s tight timeline reflects the urgency of resolving this dispute before thousands of students return to potentially unsafe conditions.

In an earlier petition, being heard by the single judge bench of Justice Gaurang Kanth, the La Martiniere schools had sought the quashing of a notification issued by the KMC ordering them to stop the renovation of abuilding.

The KMC counsel had informed Justice Kanth, who was hearing the matter on May 22, that the building had been granted heritage status, and the approval of the heritage commission would be required for any addition or alteration of the building.

Justice Kanth decided not to hear the matter without hearing the heritage commission’s version. The commission’s counsel was not present in the courtroom on May 22.