Engineers of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and representatives of the owners of the Tiljala building, where a fire last week killed three men, carried out a joint inspection on Monday to identify portions that could be structurally dangerous and may require immediate demolition.

Parts of the two adjoining buildings had been demolished by the authorities before Calcutta High Court on Friday issued an interim stay on further demolition.

The order by Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury stated that “if any portions of the building have already become dangerous, the municipal authorities, in consultation with the petitioners, shall remove such dangerous portion”.

The court further directed that, apart from such dangerous sections, “no further demolition shall take place without leave of this Court”.

A KMC official said Monday’s inspection was conducted in compliance with the high court order.

Although both buildings, owned by the same family, were being demolished, officials said the inspection on Monday could be conducted in only one of them.

“The inspection was conducted in the five-storey building. We did not find any portion hanging dangerously that needs to be pulled down immediately. We will conduct another inspection on Tuesday,” the official said. The adjoining building is also going to be inspected.

A family member of the owners, however, said they were unaware of any joint inspection and that no member of the family was present during the exercise.

“They (the KMC) might have done the inspection, but no one from the family was present,” the relative said.

The owner of the premises, Nisar Ahmed, who was arrested after the fire, had approached the high court seeking a stay on the demolition. The interim order was passed on the basis of that petition.

The five-storey structure was the building where the fire had broken out on May 12. It housed the office of a leather goods manufacturing unit, the workshop and the owners’ residence. A concrete passage connects it to the adjacent three-storey building where several families reside. The ground floor of that building housed multiple shops.

The interim stay on demolition will remain in force till June 22, when the matter is scheduled to come up for hearing again.